A very early start this morning, for the journey to Royston in Hertfordshire, where I was the guest assessor on an East of England candidate development day. Of course, living in South London (bring your passport, we promise not to tease your accent...), this meant a 5.45 a.m. alarm, and a dash for the 7.52 a.m. train from Kings Cross in order to make the 9.15 start. Far too early for this night owl but I made it anyway.
Under the 'baton' of Christine Billingham, our facilitator, the four primary assessors, Geoff Williams, Catherin Brown and Judith Bailey and myself, plus policy assessor Paul Burral, reviewed the application forms for those points worthy of further questioning before the day itself began.
Development days come in a never ending supply of varieties, dependant on the combination of assessors, the candidates and the dynamics of the group as a whole. That isn't to say that the results are capricious in any way, nor that the process itself produces random outcomes, merely that days can be hard work or a cruise for the assessors depending on a range of factors.
I've been an assessor for twelve years now, having become one of the youngest ones in the Party at that time. Worryingly, I'm still one of the youngest ones, I suppose because most of those who might be good at it are busy being candidates themselves. At first, I tended to feel rather self-conscious on the grounds that I perhaps wasn't truly qualified to tell people that they weren't quite good enough. Ironically, that sense has only receded in the past year or so, linked, I believe, to my own enhanced sense of self-worth post-divorce.
That isn't to say that I've become inured to the stresses upon the applicants, far from it. As an assessor, I have a dual responsibility, in the first instance to the applicant, ensuring that he/she has every opportunity to display their ability to best advantage, but also to the Party, to protect it and its members from potential candidates who might fail to live up the standards we aspire to achieve, with the impact that such failure would have on future campaigning.
Telling an applicant that he or she isn't up to the mark is one of the hardest things I ever do, and I hope that, when I have to deliver such news, a sense of compassion is apparent. Applicants put their egos on the line, and have often been encouraged by others to come forward and so, when they are 'rejected', it comes all the harder.
For all that, I never fail to be impressed by the consistency of assessor scoring. We all mark independently of one another, come from different backgrounds with different experiences, and yet when scores are tallied, variations are slight if they exist at all. Occasionally, one assessor will vary from the rest on one aspect, and we'll discuss that to see if there has been a difference of interpretation, especially if it impacts on a final grading, but we always respect each other's judgements.
Curiously, I seem to be mellowing with the years. I had a reputation for being on the harsh side of fair, yet I now often find myself assigning scores which are close to the group mean. Whether or not that means I'm getting better is a judgement that can only be left to those on the receiving end of my decisions, but I'd like to think that experience brings its own rewards...
As for the development day itself? I actually thought that it got better as it went along, and working with Christine, Paul, Judith, Geoff and Catherine was a real pleasure - I've worked with most of them quite often - aided by the efforts of Mark Chapman, whose efforts in feeding us, and helping us find our way around the school buildings we were using, were invaluable.
Ironically, he was one of the applicants the last time I came to Royston, and we passed him then...
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