“The big thing that was lacking [ … ] was the cross-departmental strategy.”18 David Johnston |
23.In addition to an independent, advisory Social Justice Commission to monitor and report on social justice in England, there should be a body inside government to implement recommendations and coordinate across Government. The former commissioners told us that “you do need both”.19 Mr Milburn told us that
The truth about social mobility is that if you are going to make progress you need to pull a whole succession of levers and hopefully you should pull them in sync; on the labour market, on regional policy. [ … ] You need a raft of policy initiatives and a huge amount of applied energy. It makes sense, therefore, to have co-ordination at the centre.
Baroness Shephard agreed:
I agree that you certainly do need both. I do think that it gives Government policy credibility if it has a body that is absolutely known to be independent and watching what is going on and reporting on that and able to measure progress. What you certainly need in the middle, however you deliver that, is a body that is responsible for making sure all the relevant Departments of Government are aiming in the same direction on this issue of social mobility.20
David Johnston concurred:
I think you do need the Commission. The big thing that was lacking, which is what Alan was saying, was the cross-departmental strategy. [ … ] You certainly need a Cabinet Minister who has the ability to pull all the different levers that need to be pulled in order to make progress.
24.The monitoring and reporting of social justice issues is important. The Commission has produced State of the Nation reports, assessing the progress that Great Britain has made towards improving social mobility and making recommendations for action. However, as Baroness Shephard told us,
The gap is at implementation level and co-ordination level and only Government can provide that.21
We agree. An independent body reporting from the outside of government on the progress made on improving social justice should work in tandem with a body inside government to coordinate action and implement solutions. There must be clear communication between the two bodies to ensure that the implementation and coordination body is able to act effectively on the Commission’s research.
25.When the Commission was initially set up, it reported to three Ministers in the Coalition Government: the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Education, and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Mr Milburn told us that after the 2015 election, the reporting arrangements became unclear:
After 2015 we had a debate with Oliver [Letwin], both Gillian and myself, about what would be the best arrangement to replace the coalition arrangements. [ … ] We got to a point where Oliver was very sympathetic to the idea that we reported directly into the heart of Government, to him and thence to the Prime Minister. That, from our point of view, made a huge amount of sense because you needed the centre to be engaged in this as much as individual Ministers.
After the change of Prime Minister, following the European referendum, that whole conversation frankly went into the void. There was no conversation. There was no response.
Mr Milburn made the case for the Commission reporting into the centre of government:
We had a very clear proposition, which from our point of view was far more sensible, that we reported into the centre of Government [ … ] on these cross-cutting issues. Social mobility is not just an education issue. It is the labour market, housing, regional policy, fiscal policy, and so on. You need the heft and engagement of the centre, otherwise what you have is piecemeal effort. Our view was very strongly that that was what was needed.
26.For the Government to effectively implement measures to improve social justice, the coordination must happen from the centre of government. Social justice is an issue which cannot be neatly boxed into one department: it cuts across all government departments. Individual ministers and departments working in silos cannot be as effective as a central point driving forward change. The body inside government should be the key place into which the Commission should report, and it should champion social mobility and generate government action towards tackling injustices in society.
27.This unit could be led by a Minister for Social Justice. There is already a precedent for a cross-cutting role to coordinate work across different government departments; we see no reason why this principle cannot also be applied to social justice. Baroness Shephard referred in evidence to the Government’s new Minister for Loneliness, a post which brings together government departments’ work on loneliness. She said “there is no reason why social mobility should not be given the same treatment as loneliness”.22 She suggested that the Government could “follow their own example and put this [social mobility] also cross-departmentally at the centre”.23 If the new unit was to be led by a Minister for Social Justice then we would go further than Baroness Shephard: the role should not be an add-on to a current Minister’s role, it should be the main responsibility of a Minister in the Cabinet Office.
28.Even the best monitoring and reporting on social mobility is of limited value unless the outcomes of the reports and recommendations are acted upon. The combination of a strengthened Commission and a body at the heart of government to drive forward recommendations would better demonstrate the Government’s commitment to social mobility.
29.We recommend that a Minister in the Cabinet Office be given specific responsibility for leading cross-government work on social mobility. The Minister should have responsibility for a dedicated unit with a remit to tackle social injustice, provide vital coordination across government and ensure effective implementation of ways to increase social mobility. The body would also be the crucial reporting hub for the Commission to report into government.
18 Q482
19 Q477
20 Q477
21 Q481
22 Q477
23 Q490
Published: 22 March 2018