Ministers are considering a shake-up of the government’s social mobility watchdog that could range from giving it more teeth to abolishing it outright.
The move comes amid concerns that the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) – originally conceived under Gordon Brown’s government in 2010 – has become ineffective.
Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, and others are said to feel strongly that work to improve social mobility – and thus the life chances of poorer children and families – should be a core function of government rather than being outsourced to arm’s lengths bodies such as the SMC.
It is understood to be within the scope of a Cabinet Office review of such bodies and was considered for closure last year on the basis that central government could carry out its limited functions more effectively.
The commission has no powers to determine government policy, hold public bodies to account or make recommendations to ministers. Instead, its sole statutory responsibility is to produce an annual state of the nation report on social mobility in the UK, which evaluates opportunities and inequalities.
However, while the SMC was conceived as the Child Poverty Commission by the previous Labour government in 2010, those in the Burnham government believe its focus on child poverty was diluted under the coalition government and subsequent Tory administrations. “It has essentially become a thinktank inside government,” said a source.
It was renamed the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission in 2012, before becoming the SMC in 2016, when Iain Duncan Smith scrapped then legally binding child poverty targets.
Alan Milburn, the former Labour minister now leading a review into the million young people who are Neet (not in education, employment or training), was appointed chair but resigned in 2017, saying government was “unable to devote the necessary energy and focus to the social mobility agenda”.
A year later, a report from the education select committee made a series of recommendations to give the SMC “real teeth”, all of which were rejected by the then children’s minister, Nadhim Zahawi.
A Whitehall source said: “Reducing inequality and supporting working-class communities is at the heart of this government’s agenda. Tracking progress will always be important, but ultimately this is work that should be a core function of government.
“We’re looking at all the options to make sure we’re really set-up to deliver the change people want to see in their lives as quickly and effectively as possible.”
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Any changes would be expected to be announced over the course of this parliamentary term, but new legislation would be needed to disband an organisation set out in statute.
The body is chaired by Alun Francis, who is also the chief executive of Blackpool and The Fylde college, alongside two deputy chairs and four commissioners. They are supported by a secretariat of about 20 civil servants working in the Cabinet Office.
The SMC’s most recent state of the nation report said former industrial communities across Britain face “entrenched disadvantages” stretching back decades and highlighted “extreme regional differences”, citing poorer childhood conditions, fewer job opportunities, less innovation and lack of growth.
The report said Yorkshire, the north-east, the Midlands, Wales and Scotland were still living with the impacts of deindustrialisation, describing “half a century of economic disadvantage and decline”.
Burnham, who has previously rejected what he characterised as Westminster’s fixed view of social mobility, has prioritised local devolution, technical education and housing policy at the heart of his vision of social mobility.
Phillipson, the former eduction secretary and now Labour party chair whose equalities brief includes sponsorship of the SMC, has also consistently spoken about social mobility, drawing on her own experience as a child of a working-class family in England’s north-east.
