Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff his Department have been assigned to work on workstreams relating to the (a) monitoring and (b) analysis of each of his Department's social mobility policies on (i) 1 October 2016, (ii) 1 April 2017,(iii) 1 October 2017, and (D) 1 April 2018.

Social mobility runs through every aspect of the department’s work. The purpose of the education system is to give everyone, whatever their background, the skills to succeed in life. The department recently published ‘Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential’, an action plan for driving social mobility by tackling entrenched barriers to opportunity at every life stage, from early years through to working life. The department has a range of teams undertaking monitoring and evaluation of its policies, however, since social mobility cuts across all of the department’s work, it is not possible to isolate the number of staff assigned to these activities.