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.
Last week, an analysis by the IFS revealed an expected fall in public spending on education of 3.5% per year in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. Far more striking, however, are the discrepancies in the severity of cuts to be felt by the different areas within the education budget. Spending on schools, for example, will be essentially protected (with projected cuts of around only 1%). In stark contrast, the Early Intervention Grant – encompassing Sure Start and other early years spending – is expected to face an overall cut of around 22%. It is this deep and disproportionate cutting of early years spending that actually flies in the face of the stated desire to improve social mobility.
There is now an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that early intervention and a focus on the early years of child development are where the biggest differences can be made. The government itself has received two powerful reports on precisely this theme: those by Frank Field and Graham Allen.
The scientific evidence on the crucial importance of early brain development to later life chances –- outlined in detail by the Harvard Centre on the Developing Child -– is clearly established. So too, thanks to Nobel prize winning economist James Heckman, is the economic case for the cost effectiveness of early interventions over later remedial programmes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, prevention is better than cure.
All this evidence points categorically to the conclusion reached by Nick Clegg himself in response to the Allen report: “The foundations of a fairer, more socially mobile society are laid in the critical early years of life.”
If the Coalition is genuinely serious in its desire to significantly improve social mobility and create a fairer society, it should therefore be protecting and even prioritising early years spending, rather than slashing it. Ring-fencing school spending -– although it may appease more people -– will not be enough. Continuing the blanket subsidy on travel and fuel for pensioners regardless of need will certainly do nothing to help, and a move towards means-testing would easily cover the proposed cuts to the Early Intervention Grant.
The government is certainly doing some positive things in early years -– including expanding the free pre-school offer to disadvantaged two year-olds and the recently announced piloting of universal parenting classes. However, the IFS projections indicate quite clearly that there are elements within government -– possibly within the Department for Education itself -– that still have not grasped the crucial importance of the early intervention agenda.
The key point is that social mobility is not in fact just a ‘social’ issue: it is also a deeply economic one. One estimate predicts that failure to improve levels of social mobility could cost the UK economy as much as £140 billion each year by 2050 in wasted potential.
We are repeatedly being told that it is necessary to address the deficit now because it is ‘unfair to burden future generations with debt’. It is surely equally unfair to burden those generations with an ossified society that is both morally and economically flawed.
The Coalition should, in effect, be prepared to put its money, however limited, where its mouth is. Its own evidence indicates clearly that the biggest differences can be made by intervening early. Slashing early years spending by over a fifth is contradictory in the extreme with a ‘guiding purpose’ of improving social mobility.
* Chris Paterson is a researcher for the independent liberal think-tank CentreForum.
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4 Comments
Improving social mobility is indeed a laudable and achievable goal, but placing exclusive emphasis on spending commitments forces a divisive and unhelpful political choice about where money can have its biggest impact.
If early years intervention comes at the expense of young adults where immediate help can still be decisive, or vice versa, then I’m doubtful it could be argued as a net gain.
So if the choice is between rehabilitating prisoners to prevent reoffending and giving younger kids the tools to avoid taking the path of crime in the first place then it is essential to explain the danger in favouring one group at the expense of another will exacerbate the inequality crisis by consigning many to the dustheap.
From a political standpoint the process argument that all policy success is about funding levels is an automatic loser for LibDems and it isn’t one we should be drawn too deeply into, rather we should be looking more closely at eliminating the wide range of artificial non-financial barriers put in the way to fulfilling individual potential.
There is, for example, still a wide-ranging and pervasive disconnection between qualifications and the skills they supposedly represent which gives employers nightmares in finding good candidates and forces jobseekers to make hundreds of meaningless applications often ending up in positions for which they are more often dispirited by or unsuited to: getting the right person for the right job is an economic gift which keeps giving.
Much could be done to reconnect social means with social ends and it baffles me why this is not the primary focus, especially at a time when money is tight.
Oranjepan- if we’re presenting spurious binary ‘choices’, how about the choice between giving councils 250 million quid for weekly bin collections, and proper education for children in their formative years? Or maybe we could accept that these selectively chosen choices of yours are total nonsense from start to finish. That would be quicker.
Alex,
The coalition agreement accepts the deficit reduction plan, which makes these choices both inevitable and immediate.
So I don’t see that binary funding choices are spurious given the manner of current budget allocations, perhaps you can explain that in more detail.
Today for example has seen the release of figures regarding the level of NEETs across the country, so should we restrict access to social opportunity for a generation of 16-18 yr-olds simply because help for their younger siblings provides higher value for money, or is it because the specific results won’t be visible for another decade and debate over effectiveness provides a smokescreen for higher cuts?
In other words the IFS is asking the question of LibDems whether we wish to promote higher social mobility for the few or promote lower social mobility for the many.
You may think we should avoid answering this question, but to do so cedes the initiative to Labour and Conservatives who can then make incoherent attacks against LibDems on both counts (ie saying we’re against high social mobility and against social mobility for the many – thereby leaving the utterly perverse implication that there’s no difference between the coalition partners since both sides think the state should reduce any active role on this issue).
I completely agree with the principle stated here that prevention is better than a cure, but it is incomplete because social opportunity is infectious and therefore the cure is part of the prevention.
So if we believe in social mobility at all we must ackowledge the existence of the real choices to understand how to mitigate against the worst effects of them, which the IFS is to be applauded for highlighting (even though I disagree with their deeper motives).
I agree that tackling the financial deficit is a priority for the Coalition’s government and I’m proud that tackling the opportunity deficit is a dual priority. As a reminder it says on our party membership card “The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”
I am personally disappointed that the Early Intervention Grant , including Sure Start and other early years spending, is facing cuts of around 22% according to Chris Paterson. I agree with him that this is disproportionate and that cutting of early years spending will hinding our plan to improve social mobility.
Having heard Sarah Teather MP, Minister of State for the Department for Education, speak recently at our Autumn Conference I know how passionately she is personally committed to supporting early years. I only hope Sarah can use this real evidence on the economic of cost failing to fund early years interventions, estimated as £140 billion each year by 2050 by Chris Paterson article, to influence our government’s plans. I know she has already introduced early years parenting classes.
It seems as though Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have grasped the importance of prioritising early years. We have work to do to influence our Coalition partners who clearly don’t understand the economic and social benefits of early years interventions. We should not make early years a lower priority just because this group in society won’t be able to vote for at least a decade.