Inequality: A UK government call to business action

Oct 8, 2014 | Blogs

Inequality: A UK government call to business action

Inequality.

It’s not just the USA.

Following the Martin Wolf article, I perused Business and Social Mobility: a Manifesto for Social Change (Incidentally this document is published not by the Socialist Workers Party but by Her Majesty’s Government).

It’s a good, short read.

The diagnosis is that Britain wastes far too-much talent because employers recruit from too narrow a pool.

The prescription is that Business (yes, BUSINESS) does need to do something about it.

The Commission wants:

  • More formalised work placements for young people
  • More school governors from business
  • Rigorous adherence to best practice for internships
  • Opening up well-structured roots into employment for the 55% of young people who are not graduates
  • Widening selection beyond Russell Group universities (potentially including a ‘university blind’ application processes)

Finally, the Commission wants transparency about outcomes.

They suggest that this requires:

  • A measure that adequately reflects the socioeconomic make-up of the workforce: this probably means tracking more than one thing, such as family income and educational background
  • Data gathering which goes beyond the distinction of simply those who attended ‘state’ or ‘independent’ schools as this fails to reflect the intricacies of the education system
  • Looking at each stage of the application process, to see at what stage candidates from particular backgrounds fall down
  • Publishing the application/acceptance figures to the firm by university, so that undergraduates can see if they have a realistic chance of success

Sounds over the top?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But I am so close to collecting the winter fuel allowance and getting a free bus pass that I can remember when people thought just the same about monitoring ethnicity.

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