Talk:Department for International Development

UKAiD?

I included a short paragraph describing the rebranding of DfID as UKAiD recently. Creating an identical DfID article under the title "UKAiD" might be a good idea for now as opposed to just having a section on the organisation's rebranding last summer.

Also, the article itself is pretty sparse. What bout listing out DfID's areas of operation and listing out projects it's undertaking in each country?

Chepanet (talk) 08:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sources

Who edited the Minister of State positions? No news yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Foxhound66 (talk • contribs) 21:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Criticism Section

It might be an idea to expand the existing Pergau Dam section to include broader criticisms of DFID, such as the allegations made by Michela Wrong in her book 'It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower'. Harper. (2009) ISBN 978-0061346583. Or perhaps an extra section dealing with these allegations would suffice. 118.93.3.134 (talk) 00:28, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It might be an idea to note "Ethical Fashion Forum" and the raft of PR and promotions for similar projects as well as Project Delphe, with the British Council, to promote a certain view of development. - The view in which national insurance is not mentioned and it's assumed that clothes manufacturing should move to cheap countries that have no welfare state from the UK, where it makes production more expensive. - The view so strongly held that covert operations are justified. People who used Project Delphe course notes to study, who who reported and supported Pants to Poverty and Ethical Fashion Forum, had no idea how contrived they were by the Cabinet Office and Dfid.

I could add a paragraph if nobody objects, or maybe a draft here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7d:e29a:a200:94eb:7f05:48a9:6ad9 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Criticism of wages

I have reverted the inclusion of this section for several reasons.

1. I don't believe the DfID wages are particularly notable. Giving out aid is a challenging job and people should be compensated for it. If the wages are particularly notable (e.g. much higher than equivalent positions in major charities and other governments with similar budgets), can a reliable source be found to back up the point?
2. Giving aid to the very poorest countries is usually not particularly effective as they are generally extremely corrupt and poorly governed, meaning the money is wasted.
3. I don't believe the Daily Mail meets Wikipedia's reliable source criteria. The old "broadsheet" newspapers (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent or the FT) or the BBC or something like the Economist would be much better.

-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Eraserhead1,

You say that the Daily Mail and the Daily Express are not reliable sources,

First of all: Can you prove to me that they definitively are not, as I have not been able to find anything in Wikipedia that clarifies your stance.

Secondly: You state that the BBC is a reliable source when interestingly enough the Director General, Mark Thompson, has publicly admitted that the BBC has recently been guilty of strong left-wing bias and has purposefully not reported on certain sensitive topics such as immigration etc.

Even if you stand by your assertion that such news outlets are not in fact Reliable Sources, then I still see no problem with using them in a section entitled "Controversy". For example, if a famous celebrity had naked photos posted of them and this story was reported by the Daily Mail for example, then I assume it would be OK to reference the Daily Mail then. How is this situation any different?

The Daily Mail article referenced included a quote from an MP, do you think that they just made such a quote up, does the Daily Mail in fact have a history of deliberately and grossly misquoting public officials ?

As much as it seems that you would like to not have the Daily Mail recognized as a reliable source, you can certainly not argue that everything or even most things within its pages has been falsified, is slanderous or has a noticeable bias.

I understand that items that I had included in the Controversy section were ones that only criticized the DFID. However, how about instead of just deleting the whole section that I had written, why don't you attempt to find some items that praise the DFID and defends the high salaries of it's top employees. As much as you try to make it look like you are just upholding Wikipedias rules, I strongly suspect that you are in fact just irritated that I have added something that criticizes the DFID so strongly. To prove that this is not the case, I think it would be a good idea for you to find reliable sources for the section you deleted and add them as references instead so that it can be re-instated.

Milesstern (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

While the BBC is hardly a perfect source (who is?) and has bias it is still a pretty good source. I personally don't think its seriously worthy of discussion that the Daily Mail is an equivalent level of source to the BBC. The Daily Mail and Daily Express are at best mid-market UK tabloids whereas the BBC is an internationally respected news source. If you wish to discuss the reliability of the Daily Mail as a source further the appropriate place to do so is WP:RSN.

With regards to their salaries if you want someone to do the job of running the UK's £6 billion pound aid program you are going to have to pay them appropriately. That only 17 people earn over £90000 clearly shows their salaries are being held down.

Quite frankly I'd be shocked if the equivalent people at the UN, USAID and the Japanese government aid organisations were paid significantly less. Additionally any private company controlling a similar budget would pay their senior staff vastly more than £90000/year.

On the backbench MP I think he's trying to score cheap political points. Even if all 17 of the "fat cats" were being paid £170000/year (the top salary) they'd still be only earning less than a combined £3 million, which is less than 0.05% of the UK's aid budget.

Additionally I don't think the criticism is strong at all, quite the opposite - if it was strong and legitimate criticism I'd be more than happy for it to be included in the article and it would have been picked up by more reliable sources. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 01:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

You still have not provided me with ample evidence that the Daily Mail is in fact not a Reliable Source, please direct me to where this is specifically stated in Wikipedia.

You make it clear that you personally agree with how much some of the DFID employees are paid. I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with their level of pay, but am merely bringing to light the fact that there has been recent controversy related to this matter. I had never heard of the DFID until I had read the Daily Mail article, and I would say it is safe to assume that for most who also read the article, that they had never heard of the DFID before either.

In relation to the Tory Backbencher, Douglas Carswell, you claim that he is trying to score cheap politcal points. Do you have any Reliable Sources to prove this claim? In his Wikipedia article it states:

"Douglas Carswell is the son of two medical doctors, and grew up in Africa, where his parents worked amongst resource-starved communities. His home was in Uganda until his late teens. His father, Wilson Carswell, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, diagnosed the first confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS, in Uganda in the early 1980s, and was instrumental in drawing the world's attention to the unfolding pandemic."

I fail to see how a quote from an elected MP is not "strong and legitimate" criticism of an unelected government department.

I also believe that a person should be paid appropriately for the job that they do, and in that case you would have to agree with me that the wage the Prime Minister currently receives is certainly not in the least bit sufficient. -- Milesstern (talk) 04:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

After carefully looking through the link that you provided earlier for WP:RSN, it would appear that the general consensus from WP editors is that:

1) The Daily Mail is in fact an RS but on a case by case basis.

2) The Daily Mail is an RS when it is reporting actual facts.

As far as I can see, everything that I had included in the article was certainly fact, i.e. the quote from the MP, the quote from the Taxpayers Alliance, the amount that employees at DFID are paid (I have a link to a pdf on the DFID website where their salaries are clearly stated - http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/Our-organisation1/Top-salaries/ ). Unless you believe that the DM entirely fabricated or drastically altered those two quotes.

I am not pleased that you attempted to push on me your opinion that the DM is not an RS when it appears that there are many WP editors who would certainly (and even quite vehemently) disagree with that viewpoint. It is no wonder that you could not direct me to a specific place in WP where it definitively says that the DM is not an RS, because it simply doesn't exist.

I could certainly understood if you had edited parts of my contribution but the fact that you deleted it entirely almost borders on vandalism, especially when you knew full well that the debate regarding whether the DM is an RS rages on as we speak and has in no way been sufficiently resolved to legitimize such actions on your part. -- Milesstern (talk) 05:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

The facts of the matter are the amount of money the individuals at DfID are earning - I don't dispute those figures. What opinions they have solicited from others are just opinions and aren't facts (e.g. them being "fat cats" and the statements from the Taxpayers Alliance).

With regards to the Daily Mail being a reliable source and me pushing away from that I'm only making that point because there is a generally accepted consensus of which newspapers are higher quality than others. Making a specific proof would be extremely difficult to achieve (as you'd have to prove that something they hadn't covered was actually important, and that stuff they had covered in an overly bias way was in fact overly bias) and pointing you in the direction of the WP:RSN was the best thing I could think of.

With regards to the Tory Backbencher if he wasn't trying to score cheap political points he would have come up with either a criticism that affected a decent proportion of the budget (so for example if they spent 10% of their budget on civil servants in London - criticising that would be a decent proportion of the budget, even if that is the same at the UN and USAID etc.) or he would have compared them to other aid organisations (so for example if the head of the world food program was paid £100000/year and the head of DfID is paid £170000 then it would be legitimate to make the comparison and say the head of DfID is overpaid)

If there is a legitimate controversy over the matter then I feel it would be covered by a more reliable source as well. For example when I search for the issue on the Daily Telegraph's website I found no results for this particular topic.

Off topic I agree on the salary of the prime minister and I also am going to add something on them not always being transparent with their aid donations. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

There is absolutely no generally accepted consensus that the Daily Mail is of less quality that any other UK media outlet. I do not think you have read what I had posted earlier, let me re-state what I have extracted from the link you provided me . . . If there is any consensus from WP editors regarding the DM being an RS it is as follows: the DM can be used as an RS on a case by case basis and that the DM is an RS when reporting actual facts. If you can prove without a doubt that the quotes published by the DM that I had included were in fact fabricated or altered in any way by the DM then you will need to supply such evidence.

Whether you think that such facts provided by a mainstream media outlet that otherwise meets all the requirements of a WP:RS should or should not be included in the DFID article is not relevant. Personal opinion of a WP editor, regardless of how acclaimed or decorated they me be, should not be the sole decider as to whether specific content is or or is not included in a WP article.

I do not believe your judgement of this matter should in any way be the final decision. We should therefor refer this matter to third party editors and/or administrators.

I thank you for your time Eraserhead1 and look forward to a speedy and just resolution of this matter -- Milesstern (talk) 04:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

In addition, I do note that you think that the salary of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is sufficient, and I would like to state for the record that his salary (David Camerons') is £142,500 per year. Do you not think that it is incorrect that the salary of the head of government of the United Kingdom is sufficiently less than the salary of the head of a UK government department i.e. Nemat Shafiks' salary is £170,000 per year (she is the head of the DFID)? You claim that it "would be legitimate to make the comparison'" if the head of the World Food Program is paid significantly less than the head of the UKs DFID. However I have explicit proof that the head of the UK is paid significantly less than the head of the DFID, but for some reason you do not think that this is legitimate. Why is it that you think that heads of government development programs should be paid more than actual heads of government ? Nemat Shafik is in charge, as you claim, of a £6 billion budget, but David Cameron would in fact be in charge of a budget considerably much, much larger than that.

It doesn't make sense !!! Why do I feel like Johny Cochrane from that South Park episode giving the Chewbacca defense, it doesn't make sense (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense)??? See the silly monkey ??? (Head of juror explodes). It doesn't make sense . . . except I'm not talking about Wookies on Endor, I'm talking about how certain UK public servants make more than the actual head UK public servant. It doesn't make sense . . . -- Milesstern (talk)

a) Quotes of others aren't facts.

b) There is certainly a consensus that some newspapers are better than others, that's why the Telegraph claims to be Britain's best selling quality newspaper. I'll try and find a source if I can.

EDIT: See List of newspapers in the United Kingdom#Broadsheet and former broadsheet newspapers or http://www.mediauk.com/article/32717/the-quality-newspapers.

c) The Prime Ministers salary I believe excludes his MP's salary (I'll find a source for that) and he gets some rather nice perks as well (two grace and favour homes). I'll look later.

EDIT: The Prime Minister is allowed to take home a salary of up to £198000 ([www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/m06.pdf source]) though he can choose to take a lower salary as well as Chequers and 10 Downing Street. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Given the climate that the quotes were said in i.e. one in where massive public spending cuts were being announced, they certainly were facts. The MP's quote was "Think what this sum of money could do to provide fresh drinking water or microfinance in Africa. If we are serious about increasing the aid budget the very least we should be doing is spending the money on aid, not bloated civil servant salaries in Whitehall. Many of my constituents who are absorbing the impact of the spending cuts on their family finances will be baffled as to why we are financing DFID fat cat salaries." It is a fact that if their wages were cut that the money could go to things like fresh drinking water in Africa and it is a fact that some of his constituents are baffled that their wages have not been cut when so many other public services have.

Regardless of whether or not there is a general consensus that certain media outlets are of better quality than the Daily Mail, which as far as I'm concerned does not exist within WP anyway, this should have no bearing on whether the DM is a Reliable Source or not. Once again, if there is any general consensus on WP regarding the DM it is that it is an RS on a case by case basis. Please provide suitable evidence that in this specific case the DM is not an RS.

This is clearly stated in the RS section regarding News Organizations: "Mainstream news sources are generally considered to be reliable. However, even the most reputable news outlets occasionally contain errors. Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article is something that must be assessed on a case by case basis. When using news sources, care should be taken to distinguish opinion columns from news reporting."

In order to declare that the DM is not an RS in this specific case, you will need to prove that:

A) There are errors in the article.

B) The article is an opinion piece.

Whether or not the PM is allowed to take home a salary of £198,00 is not indicative of the fact that his actual salary is £142,500, which is still £30,000 less than the salary of the head of the DFID. It is generally well known in the public sphere and widely reported by mainstream news sources that the PM's salary is £142,500. Very few people are aware of the fact that he is allowed a much higher salary of £198,000, and it appears that even you were not aware of this figure until you had looked it up. -- Milesstern (talk) 22:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about it you have a point about the prime ministers salary in comparison. However the article doesn't make that comparison, and its pretty clearly an opinion piece because the article doesn't make any factual comparisons of their pay to other equivalent positions. Talking about the aid budget increasing when every other department is being cut certainly seems legitimate and something that I'm sure is backed up by other sources and is something we should definitely include in the article, however the comparison to the Home Office is dishonest as the Home Office had become unwieldy under Labour and has been cut into two departments. The other dishonest comparison that we should ignore is the aid waste unless they can prove its endemic - there is widespread corruption of many government programs in India - (this is an interesting read on the subject), aid isn't going to be exempt.-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Criticisms

I think this page could do with a criticisms section. This would include criticisms in the media of the massive salaries of high-up bureaucrats in the department, the cost of the 'rebranding' exercise, and problems with spending being poorly directed and ineffective. These stories feature regularly in the Telegraph. eg. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8261809/Where-our-overseas-aid-goes-salsa-in-Cambridge-coffee-in-Yorkshire.html / http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7228534/50m-of-Governments-international-aid-budget-spent-in-the-UK.html

Also I don't see why we can't reference stories in the Daily Mail (however hateful a publication it may be), when they express grievances held by the public regarding government incompetency and corruption. 202.231.41.1 (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Well criticism sections are generally to be avoided, but the issue of UK spending was already in the article. See the last paragraph of the role within government section. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 11:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

PS if the Daily Mail being forward legitimate grievances regarding government incompetency and corruption other more reliable sources will cover it as well. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:35, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

PPS I've added some more content this morning including criticism. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Out of interest, why are criticism sections generally to be avoided? Should individual scandals/controversies have their own sections in each article? Vorpaul (talk) 15:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

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