Last night’s Progress debate on “Social mobility in an age of austerity” was a call to arms to put social mobility on the political agenda in a more meaningful way than maybe the Coalition government is bargaining for. Alan Milburn’s reports monitoring the impact of the government’s actions on the attainment gap at key life stages are surely going to be uncomfortable reading for a government scrapping Education Maintenance Allowances, increasing tuition fees and slashing local government and community services.

I came away with four thoughts on some of the themes in Alan’s speech:

(1) factors affecting social mobility vary across the nations and regions of the UK –employment options, profile of schools but also the consequences of public policy decisions. A comparative approach to the impact on social mobility of government actions at both a UK and devolved level would be helpful – for instance, the Welsh Assembly Government’s retention of the Equality Act duty for public bodies to reduce socio-economic inequalities and its subsidy for Welsh students’ university tuition fees, are in stark contrast with the Coalition government’s approach at a UK-wide level

(2) we tend see issues of social mobility mainly through the prism of education and skills – but we also need to see the bigger picture. In Wales the correlation between socio-economic circumstances and attainment are very marked. As David Egan points out in The Bevan Foundation book “Poverty and Social Exclusion in Wales” –research shows that in recent years improvements in educational outcomes in Wales are lagging behind other parts of the UK, that socio-economic factors are a huge contributor and that the “achievement gap” is bigger in Wales than in many other countries. So as well as school leadership which emphasises high achievement, we also need policy solutions which address the impact of family, access to resources (like the internet) and community influences. There are some clear pointers here to decisions around library closures and EMA but how do we effectively get role models and mentors into the lives of young people who might otherwise not have any experience, say of higher education or even of employment?

(3) given the theme of last night’s discussion, the subtext might be: what can we do which won’t cost the taxpayer money? Part of the answer is to engage business and the professions in financing pilot schemes and outreach activities. But there are low-cost solutions for business too. At my workplace, we are developing an internship scheme for people who haven’t followed conventional paths through the education system. But this should also be about job selection procedures -  and businesses should challenge themselves to look for candidates with potential and passion rather than just those who have conventional qualifications

(4) “social mobility” is an idea which engages mainstream opinion in a way that “equality” often doesn’t. This may be because mobility is a vaguer concept than redistribution – though addressing income inequality is a key element to increased social mobility. But since tomorrow’s professional is living today in a household richer than 7 in 10 families, we should be able to mobilise broad-based support to encourage social mobility across all income groups. This is a campaign with benefits for average income households as well as people from disadvantaged backgrounds.