Transparency data

Social Mobility Commission Quarterly Report: January - March 2020

Updated 3 December 2021

Summary

This was a busy period with considerable Parliamentary activity, publications of reports, launch of our employers’ programme, producing our statutory report and supporting social mobility charities in the context of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Research agenda

Publications

The 2019 Social Mobility Barometer was published on 21st January. The barometer highlights attitudes to social mobility, from awareness of what social mobility is to whether social mobility has improved in recent years; and how a respondent considers their opportunities compared to their parents.

We published an evidence review of ‘what works’ activity in the Further Education (FE) and Adult Skills sector on 21st January. A technical paper was produced alongside a policy briefing, laying out the steps government should take to create a What Works Centre for FE and Adult Skills.

Finally, the Commission, alongside the Bridge Group, produced an Employers Toolkit which was launched at an event on 6th February. The toolkit provides guidance and practical advice for employers to attract and retain talented people from poorer backgrounds.

Projects

Policy workshops were held for several research projects, involving a range of stakeholders, with a view to developing strong policy recommendations and/or a robust narrative.

We completed four research projects which will be published later in 2020. They include:

• Apprenticeships and social mobility
• Downward mobility
• Early years
• Moving out to move up: do people move away from their regions to get a good job?

New projects

The Commission awarded its final four research projects of the fiscal year. These were: an intergenerational income mobility analysis that will provide granular, local authority-level outcomes; establishing a 30-year framework for measuring social mobility; assessing barriers to progression within a large employer organisation by socio-economic background and an assessment of the overlap between social mobility, poverty and inequality.

Statutory report

The Commission produced a statutory report which assesses government progress on historic recommendations made in previous SMC reports. We did this through engagement with a range of departments. In the context of the pandemic, we have delayed laying the report to the next quarter.

Advocacy

Chair’s engagements

Dame Martina Milburn met Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester and Steve Rotherham, Metro Mayor of Liverpool City Region in Manchester on 14 January. She also met with officials of the Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit to discuss Greater Manchester Inclusive Growth beyond 2020 and regional disparities in investment, and opportunities in the UK.

Dame Martina and Commissioners hosted a second event for SMC Ambassadors and stakeholders in London on 21 January. The Further Education and Adult Skills Sector and Social Mobility Barometer reports were launched at the event.

Dame Martina met Nusrat Ghani, PUSS, Department for Transport, on 4 February to discuss transport infrastructure within and between towns and cities, and the impact of poor rural public transport.

11 February was a busy day. Martina started the day with a meeting with Munira Mirza at No. 10. She then met with Justin Madders, Chair of the APPG on Social Mobility. This was followed by a meeting with Sarah Healey, Permanent Secretary, DCMS, to discuss its targeted youth employment and skills funding programmes and how to work together to influence employers in key socially immobile sectors. She also gave an interview to BBC London about getting more young people from deprived backgrounds into universities.

Dame Martina hosted an event in London on 5 March for Universities’ Vice-Chancellors to discuss socioeconomic diversity in the Higher Education sector. A full list of the Chair’s engagements is included at Annex A.

Commissioner engagements

A list of the Commissioners’ engagements is included at Annex B.

Secretariat engagements

Speeches were given by members of the Secretariat at the following events:

• At our Ambassadors event on 21 January Lindsay Trammell spoke about our Further Education report and Erin Hawkins presented the findings from the 2019-20 Social Mobility Barometer.
• Debjani Ghosh hosted a meeting on 3 February with a Malaysian minister, Mr Fahmi Fadzil, who was interested to learn about our work.
• Sasha Morgan held an event for chief executives of charities that run social mobility programmes in London on 25 February

Parliament

A Lords debate on social mobility was held on 29 January followed by a Westminster Hall debate on 12 February. The Secretariat wrote to the Education Select Committee on 26 March drawing attention to our employers’ programme to improve socio-economic diversity in the workplace and to our new www.socialmobilityworks.org microsite.

Employers programme

The employers programme delivered a wide range of activities in this quarter. Eight training events were held and were attended by 184 employers from across the country. Positive working relationships have been built with around two dozen key stakeholders and we are helping the City of London and the Law Society with plans for their key leaders (the Lord Mayor and the upcoming President) who want to use their terms to specifically address social mobility in law.

COVID-19 response

COVID-19 began to hit towards the end of the quarter, with lockdown and school closures in March. The Commission acted quickly to engage with our network of social mobility charities in order to understand and support them with their various challenges. We set up a programme of work for delivery in Q2 which allows the network to engage with a range of external expertise on planning in a recession, transition to digital programmes, effective communication and grant readiness.

The Commission has also initiated a broad research agenda to understand the impact of COVID-19 on socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. We have engaged with other arms length bodies (ALBs) and internal stakeholders on their work to think strategically about where to elicit evidence and focus our efforts. We are now moving into producing some rapid polling and survey work, with a view to generating a substantial research paper later this year which informs the COVID-19 recovery response.

We have also assessed the impact of COVID-19 on our ongoing research projects and put mitigations into place on a small number of projects which were affected.

Finally, COVID-19 has changed the way we have interacted with stakeholders for the employers programme. Some of our priority industries are not currently available to us (e.g. retail and SMEs), while others appear to be even more engaged with our work (professional services and public sector).

Media and campaigning

The Commission published three reports in this quarter which received good publicity.

The launch of the Social Mobility Barometer and the Further Education report was combined with a meeting of our Ambassador organisations at the end of January. We discussed our work on FE and the need to keep up momentum for further funding. There was good follow up in the press on both reports with pieces in several national newspapers and the specialist press. One of our commissioners, Sammy Wright, wrote a commentary piece in the TES. We also put out press releases for the Commission visit to Portsmouth in February and for both the London launch and regional launches of the Employers’ Toolkit.

Social Media Highlights

• 10% increase in Twitter followers
• 522 retweets / shares on social media
• 602 likes on social media
• Over 50 mentions on Twitter
• We tweeted live both debates on social mobility in the House of Lords and Westminster Hall

Governance

The Commission held one board meeting and three telebriefings during this period. The attendance rate from Commissioners was 46%.

Annex A: Chair’s engagements

Date	Who	Organisation	Why
7 January	Commission telebriefing	SMC	Secretariat business and collaboration with stakeholder organisation
14 January	Mayoral visit to Manchester: Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham	Mayor of Greater Manchester and Metro Mayor, Liverpool City Region	To discuss the role of combined authorities in tackling structural barriers to social mobility and explore how we can work together to support their work
14 January	Hannah Goldwyn-Simpkins and Alex Macdougall	Inclusive Growth Unit	To discuss Inclusive Growth in Manchester
14 January	Marianne Sensier, Research Associate	Inclusive Growth Unit	Discussion on Regional disparities in investment and opportunity across the UK
21 January	Ambassadors / Stakeholders event	SMC Ambassadors and key stakeholders	Discussion focussed on the FE and Adult Skills and Social Mobility Barometer report Launch launched on the day
22 January	Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education	Department for Education	Catch-up meeting
29 January	Michelle Donelan, PUSS, Children and Families	Department for Education	Catch-up meeting
4 February	Nusrat Ghani, PUSS, Transport	Department for Transport	To discuss transport infrastructure
6 February	Ian Ferguson, DfE NED	Department for Education	Appraisal
11 February	Munira Mirza, Director	No 10 Policy Unit	Social mobility discussion
11 February	Justin Madders, Chair, APPG on Social Mobility	House of Parliament	Catch-up meeting
11 February	Sarah Healey, Permanent Secretary	DCMS	Discussion on youth employment and skills programmes / working together
11 February	BBC London	BBC	Interview on getting more young people from deprived backgrounds into universities
12 February	Visit to the South Coast and Commission meeting	The Learning Zone, Portsmouth	Visit to various initiatives in and around the Portsmouth area that help to improve the outcomes of young people from disadvantaged and challenging backgrounds, followed by Commission meeting
5 March	Vice- Chancellor’s event	London	Discussion on socio-economic diversity in the HE sector

Annex B: Commissioners’ engagements

Date	Activity
Jody Walker
26 February	British Retail Consortium toolkit workshop
5 March	Employers toolkit event
Alistair Da Costa
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
Farrah Storr
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
Harvey Matthewson
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
Jessica Oghenegweke
19 January	Volunteered at Hackney church (Kids)
21 January	Attendance at Ambassadors/Stakeholders event
23 January	Meeting with Secretariat about SMC Instagram channel
1 February	Organised VR Weekender for 11-14 year olds to experience new technology at Roundhouse
12 February	Visit to South Coast /Commission meeting
3 March	Attendance at Diversity and Inclusion sessions at Roundhouse (Driving Change Event)
12 March	Meeting with Secretariat on development of an SMC Instagram
Liz Williams
27 January	Meeting with ESMA and BT
4 February	Attendance at Movement to Work CEO summit and annual awards, highlighting the social mobility imperative for young people
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
19 February	Briefing session on employer toolkit strategy
24 February	Speaking slot: Institute of Coding conference
25 February	Speaking slot: APPG on Digital Skills
3 March	Meeting with Compass Group on employer’s toolkit
Pippa Dunn
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
Saeed Atcha
21 January	Media Round - Social Barometer
21 January	Ambassador’s Event speech
22 January	Speech to Executive Leadership of The Focus Trust schools
22 January	Speech to Oldham Pupil Parliament
29 January	Keynote speech on social mobility for Whole Education
30 January	Keynote Speech for charity Power2’s graduation
26 February	Joined Money & Pensions Service as Commissioner on their Financial Wellbeing challenge group
Sam Friedman
7 January	Commission telebriefing
6 February	Panel member at an Employers’ Toolkit launch event
Feb-March	Reading draft research reports and contributing to their content
Sammy Wright
7 January	Commission telebriefing
20 January	Visit to Benfield school to speak to students and staff on about social mobility in the North East
21 January	Provided an article for TES on what works centres for FE
21 January	Radio Tees interview on social mobility
12 February	South Coast visit and Commission meeting
27 February	Presentation on social mobility to DfE staff in Darlington
7 March	Presentation on social mobility at Trinity College, Oxford
Sandra Wallace
7 Jan	Commission telebriefing
13 February	Panel member at Social Mobility Pledge event. Discussing social mobility in the legal sector
3 March	Panel member on Money Matters event with the Law Society London Chancery Lane and the Wesleyan Assurance, looking at Women in the Law and Social Mobility Barriers
Steven Cooper
7 January	Session with Secretariat on employers work
29 January	Attendance at Apprenticeships Policy Workshop
30 January	Attendance Immersion for Faculty session
6 February	Employer Toolkit Interactive Workshop
12 February	Panel member at Govia Thameslink / Prince’s Trust event (Futures at Stake) looking at research results on young people, employment, and business
12 February	Commission meeting, Portsmouth
13 February	Chetty Policy Workshop
14 February	Attendance at Apprenticeships Path Forward session