Social Mobility Commission unveils Annual Review 2020

The @SMCommission launches its 2020 review and unveils plans for this year, including assessing the impact of COVID-19 on social mobility:

Sasha Morgan, Director of the Social Mobility Commission, commented:

“This is our tenth year of influencing policy at the highest level and advocating for sustainable change in areas including early years childcare, housing, education and apprenticeships. The country is moving in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.”

We are delighted to publish our Annual Review & Business Plan 2020 which showcases our achievements in 2020 and sets out our priorities for the future.

In 2020 we influenced government policy makers and politicians, and published 13 pieces of research that define modern Britain.

Our seminal report, ‘Monitoring social mobility 2013-2020’ acknowledged areas where the government should be praised for promoting social mobility, while highlighting other areas where no progress has been made.

We produced our most comprehensive study of geographic socio-economic disparities, identifying the ‘coldest’ areas in England for social mobility and income.

Embedding social mobility in HR

In addition, we worked with leading employers to help them embed social mobility into their HR polices, devising toolkits that offer practical support.

This includes a sector-specific toolkit for professional and financial services that will help the industry to recruit and retain employees from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Our future priorities include creating an ambitious 30-year framework for social mobility, as well as a framework to measure progress.

We will be assessing social mobility in detail across the UK, and looking at the impact of COVID-19 on disadvantaged young people.

We will also explore the relationships between social mobility outcomes and mental and physical health, plugging knowledge gaps that are critical to address due to the widening inequalities caused by the pandemic.