Social Mobility: What Is Needed

It is hardly surprising that a spat has broken out between the members of the Social Mobility Commission and the government. It is indeed the case that there is a gap between May’s rhetoric, often lofty and inspirational, and the delivery of her aspirations. On everything. So social mobility will have have to take its place in a lengthening queue in which Brexit, as Alan Milburn points out, has elbowed everything else aside.

This blog has for long railed against the Whitehall mania for solving problems by appointing quangos to find answers. This does not work, costs untold billions and achieves next to nothing. What it does do is let the civil service and its political masters off the hook for issues which are their responsibility and theirs alone. So this Social Mobility Commission drama is of little interest here.

What is of interest is the issue. Social mobility has become the outcome of celebrity rather than effort, because too few are able to access the opportunities their parents and grandparents enjoyed in the post war era, when real improvement came about at all levels with opportunities for life enhancing progress, whichever party was in power. That was down to one thing. The money was made available for the job. Of course it was a lot less money in cash terms than today but health, education, training and career options were right there for the asking and properly funded. So was affordable housing.

However many commissions are appointed, brimming with however many brilliant minds and worthy ambitions, nothing can happen until somebody sorts out the economy, stricken by chronic austerity and mounting Brexit chaos.