Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they (1) assess, (2) evaluate, and (3) effectively manage, improvements in social mobility.

Tackling social mobility is the department’s priority. We use a range of measures to assess our progress towards giving all young people the best start in life, regardless of their background.

Thanks to these measures, we can already evaluate some of our successes. Raising school standards is key to social mobility and we know that there are 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers – another core measure of our progress – has narrowed since we introduced the Pupil Premium in 2011. This is now worth around £2.5 billion per year. Young pupils from disadvantaged areas are also entering universities at record rates, providing another key measure of success.

Through the department’s Opportunity Areas program, we use an Index developed by the Social Mobility Commission to identify 12 areas of the country with some of the greatest challenges. We will be targeting £72 million of investment over three years in these areas to improve outcomes for disadvantaged young people at every level of the education system.

In order to continue the department’s work in effectively managing improvements in social mobility we have recently published 'Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential' - an ambitious strategy that sets out an agenda for action from early years’ education to university and vocational education. A copy of this report has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.