Tag Archives: social mobility

Nick Clegg’s social mobility drive wins backing from banks and law firms

By Mark Pack | Published 12th January 2012 - 8:25 am

The Evening Standard reports:

Banks and law firms in London today backed Nick Clegg’s campaign to open up recruitment to all social backgrounds.

The Deputy Prime Minister announced that Barclays, HSBC, Credit Suisse, RBS and a string of other City institutions have signed up to his “business compact” on internships, work experience and recruitment…

“This is an important step towards a society where it’s what you know, not who you know, that counts,” Mr Clegg said.

“Working with the

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The Independent View: Now is not the time to debate niceties about constitutional reform

By David Skelton | Published 21st December 2011 - 10:55 am

In an attempt to repair his Party’s battered poll ratings and diminished credibility following the veto and its aftermath, Nick Clegg has launched the concept of the ‘Open Society’ into the public domain. It mixes important ideas with a sense of a motherhood and apple pie shopping list.

It’s hard to see how the Open Society concept, with its nods to Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, will resonate outside of Westminster at a time of increasing economic concern. When people’s major concerns are the cost of energy bills, the cost of living and worries about unemployment and job security, it …

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , , | 24 Comments

Farewell alarm clocks and hello John Major: Nick Clegg’s new strategy

By Mark Pack | Published 20th December 2011 - 8:23 am

In his speech yesterday Nick Clegg said, “We want a truly open society, in which every man and woman will be able to go as far as their talent, ambition and effort take them”.

Oh wait, hang on.

Sorry, wrong speech.

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Jeremy Browne: absolutely right

By Mark Pack | Published 17th December 2011 - 10:24 am

From an interview the Liberal Democrat Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne gave the Evening Standard this week:

I think there is a danger that we are defined by a relatively small set of issues that are relevant and significant but do not give a rounded picture of what the Liberal Democrats are in government in order to achieve.

As he rightly says, there’s a danger in the events of 2011 that the party ends up leaving just that impression:

It would be a mistake for the Lib-Dems to come to be known in the public minds as the party that in 2011

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The Independent View: There are now two main government narratives about child poverty

By Alison Garnham | Published 12th December 2011 - 2:26 pm

It’s been said that Margaret Thatcher’s governments did two things for poverty. First they increased it. Then they pretended it did not exist. As Alan Milburn prepares to makes his first speech as the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty on Tuesday, his task will be to help the Coalition avoid a similar, devastating, legacy.

The last government’s record was far from perfect, but Milburn should advise the Coalition to recognise the very real progress made and learn from the successes just as much as from the failings.

Some Ministers, including Lib Dems, have bizarrely trashed the last government’s

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , , , | 9 Comments

The Independent View: Educational disadvantage is one of the most unjust and pervasive problems

By Brett Wigdortz | Published 7th November 2011 - 9:35 am

The link between family income and educational attainment is greater in the UK than in almost any other developed country. We must all be concerned with a situation where 96% of young people educated in independent schools progress to university, but only 16% of pupils eligible for free school meals make the same progression. This statistic should be hugely troubling to anyone who believes in a society of equal opportunities.

The evidence shows that even when children start school at age five on a reasonably even footing, those from disadvantaged backgrounds begin to diverge dramatically from their peers in terms of attainment.

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , | 7 Comments

The Independent View: Slashing early years spending contradicts the desire to improve social mobility

By Chris Paterson | Published 3rd November 2011 - 1:45 pm

In its Social Mobility strategy launched last April, the government made clear the dual priorities shaping its agenda:

“Tackling the financial deficit is the Coalition’s most immediate task. But tackling the opportunity deficit – creating an open, socially mobile society – is our guiding purpose.”

These are strong words indeed, marking an unequivocal commitment to improving the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. At a very minimum, they indicate a clear intention to manage the necessary public spending cuts in a way that recognises this laudable goal.

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Individual electoral registration, credit and social mobility

By Mark Pack | Published 2nd November 2011 - 3:53 pm

One aspect of electoral registration, and the potential problems with making registration voluntary, is the knock-on effect on credit and social mobility. That was the aspect which Liberal Democrat peer (Lord) Chris Rennard took up during a debate in the Lords this week:

Lord Rennard: My Lords, does the Minister accept that it really is necessary to carry out a thorough, door-to-door, face-to-face canvass in order to ensure both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register? Does he accept that failure to do so not only threatens the integrity of the democratic process but could also cause problems for

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Housing: six things that could be done

By Mark Pack | Published 1st November 2011 - 8:46 am

As Tim Leunig pointed out last week, housing plays an important role in most people’s concept of social mobility, a point highlighted in Stephen Gilbert’s piece over the summer recounting his own personal circumstances:

Last year I was probably the only MP to be elected while still living with my parents. Of course, I’d moved out of home and, like many others, had to move back again. It’s a symptom of the fact that housing policy in the UK is in crisis. We have millions of people languishing on social housing waiting lists, first-time-buyers priced out of the market

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The Independent View: Coalition’s social mobility strategy failing

By Jonathan Clifton | Published 28th October 2011 - 9:54 am

The government’s plan to improve social mobility has been dealt a series of blows over the past week. New education data show that trends towards a more ‘socially mobile’ Britain are pointing in the wrong direction.

Nick Clegg launched the government’s social mobility strategy last April, promising to ‘open the doors of opportunity’ to children from disadvantaged homes as they move into adulthood. Children from poor homes are half as likely to achieve five good GCSEs as their better off peers, and they account for less than one in a hundred Oxbridge students. Clegg rightly pointed out that …

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Opinion: How we’ve been going wrong for the last 20 years

By Tim Leunig | Published 27th October 2011 - 10:54 am

Social mobility means more than whether people are in the same income group as their parents. It also means that the lives of people “below” look more like those “above” them as time goes on.

Most of the twentieth century saw a clear demarcation between blue and white collar workers. Blue collar workers were paid less, and their lives were much less secure. They were more likely to be on short-term contracts – labourers were often hired by the day. Their work involved a greater risk of injury, and thus loss of work. They were less likely to have unemployment insurance and a company pension. The employment conditions for white collar workers were much more reliable – and that, as much as the difference in income, meant that white collar workers were able to buy a house, giving them a security not enjoyed by blue collar workers.

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Opinion: Education matters in tackling social mobility

By Tim Leunig | Published 25th October 2011 - 2:26 pm

Social mobility is core to the Coalition and Nick Clegg personally. It means that your birth plays little or no role in determining your life outcomes. It is the opposite of feudalism. Economic mobility is an important part of social mobility. Where you end up economically is determined by your ability and hard work, for sure, but also by whether you get a good education, good advice, and – for some – by whether you inherit.

Government should concentrate on what it can do, in this case education. Kids from poor backgrounds generally do much worse at school – and so they end up poor later on. Government can improve school results for such kids relative to others: Labour did it – a bit. There is big variation in this across the country, so every local authority except one should be ringing up those who are doing better and learning from them.

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Do you agree with Will Self about poverty, class and racism?

By Mark Pack | Published 24th October 2011 - 12:27 pm

Over on the BBC website Will Self writes:

Racism is rarely a sole cause of social injustice, but alongside other factors it can limit people’s social mobility, says Will Self…

All too often pundits and policymakers seek a single cause for social stratification when they should accept that in a nation where inequality in real monetary terms is increasing – and has been doing so for quite some time despite the so-called boom years – the reasons for being at the bottom of the heap are manifold.

It’s not a case of class or family or education or money or race, it’s

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Nick Clegg’s speech to LibDem Conference

By Mark Pack | Published 21st September 2011 - 3:51 pm

During Liberal Democrat conference someone watching it from home texted me: “I now know what the Lib Dems are against – bankers, top rate taxpayers, tax cheats generally, overpaid directors and energy companies But, with the single exception of gay marriage, I’ve got no idea what the Lib Dems are for.”

Some will – rightly – quibble over the ‘against’ list in that but the essential point is a fair one. Liberal Democrat conference has been a lot about what won’t happen or isn’t the case: the coalition isn’t going to end early, the Liberal Democrats are not the same as …

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Opinion: Conference perspective – media, message and motivation

By James Kempton | Published 19th September 2011 - 6:22 pm

Looking at the media coverage of the last 24 hours at Conference, it’s all been about tax, boardroom pay and jobs – tackling Labour’s economic legacy. 

But yesterday in the Main Hall, and today in many of the fringes, delegates have also been debating another theme – social mobility, or as Sarah Teather, our Education Minister, powerfully put it – the challenge of breaking the link between the circumstances of a child’s birth and his or her fate. The fact that in this country the richest 16 year-olds are three times as likely …

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