Robert Whelan

Robert George Whelan (born 31 December 1951) was the original Deputy Director of the right-wing think-tank Civitas. He is Managing Director of the New Model School Company, set up by supporters of Civitas in 2003 to create a network of low-cost independent schools. Previously he was the Assistant Director of the IEA Health and Welfare Unit and, for four years from 2000-004, was Director of the Family Education Trust (the moral conservative pressure group formerly known as Family and Youth Concern).

Whelan is editorial director at Civitas and a visiting fellow at the University of Derby’s Centre for Educational Research.

Advocating extreme privatisation

In 1996 Whelan wrote an article in the Institute of Economic Affairs's journal Economic Affairs suggesting that multi-national corporations should be invited to bid for the right to run countries in Africa. According to the Press Association Whelan proposed that corporations should be granted a lease to run a country for around 21 years, claiming that they would have an interest in establishing the conditions necessary for economic growth, such as national security and law and order, as this would increase tax revenues. He was quoted as saying: 'Foreign aid has created too many wealthy dictators for us to have any very high expectations of what can be achieved by making cash grants to Africa. The only answer would be to reform the way in which African countries are governed.'

Publications

Whelan's books include The Corrosion of Charity (1996); Involuntary Action: How Voluntary is the 'Voluntary' Sector? (1999); Octavia Hill’s Letters to Fellow-Workers, 1872-1911, co-edited with Anne Anderson (2005); and The Corruption of the Curriculum (ed.) (2007).

Affiliations

• Speaker at a Battle of Ideas session in 2007 on 'Moralising the curriculum'.<ref> 'Moralising the curriculum'