The Equalities Review

Review Panel meeting, 13 October 2005 at 2.00pm

Venue

3rd Floor, 22 Whitehall
London SW1A 2WH

Attendees

Review Panel
Trevor Phillips (Chair)
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas
Carol Lake
Nick Pearce

Review Team
Cathy Francis
Stephen Earl
Uma Moorthy
Giovanni Razzu
Sarah Martyn

Apologies

Sir Robert Kerslake
Rosie Seymour

Agenda item 1 – ERT Presentation: Gathering the evidence

The Equalities Review Team made a presentation to the Panel which summarised the results of their research so far. The presentation used the data available on education, employment and health outcomes at each stage of the life cycle. It looked at the progress that had been made over time in reducing inequalities, either as a result of social and economic trends or through targeted action. At each stage of the life cycle and for each of the outcome areas, the presentation focused on some of the most important issues, summarised the available data and identified data gaps.

The following key points emerged in discussion:

• There needed to be more analysis of pre-school outcomes. The secretariat should explore opportunities for further analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study and the Institute of Education's Centre for Longitudinal Studies
• Around 50% of young people leave school without 5 A*-Cs at GCSE. GSCE/A levels are used as the routine measurements for educational achievement. But good results are clearly not attainable by some young people – and are therefore not a universal standard. The aim should be to design a high performance educational system that delivered better outcomes for all children
• Analysis of young people gaining A*-G grades should be provided for the next meeting
• The Panel agreed that it would be important to identify what other outcome measures might be needed to assess whether or not an individual had the skills properly to access basic human resources. For example, perhaps adequate numeracy and literacy might be the minimum criteria for education. What other indicators might be appropriate? The secretariat were asked to establish:
  • the percentage of young people who only achieve GCSE D-G grades who then go on to achieve more qualifications
  • which young people fail to achieve any qualifications
  • the percentage of young people leaving school who could not read or write
• The Panel also wanted further analysis into:
  • the barriers that prevent people from achieving their potential
  • why different groups have different rates of social mobility
  • a possible ‘irreducible minimum’ of resource that applies to an individual's stock of social and other capital
  • how could people be supported to and beyond these minimum thresholds?
  • how much resource was required to get everyone over these thresholds?
  • where should resource be invested and how should it be distributed? who should get priority?

Other points raised:

• Lack of social capital can influence participation and cohesion in many other ways. For example, some older immigrants, who may have never learnt to read or write English, might be excluded from civic participation for this reason.
• Some members of the Panel were concerned that the promotion of equality should not put an unnecessary burden on business. Many of the advances in women's equality, for example, had come about through social, cultural and economic change rather than purely as a result of legislation. The Panel thought that more work should be done to assess the extent to which economic factors could be used to achieve greater equality.
• The secretariat should tap into work done by organisations such as Henley Forecasting and the London Business School on horizon scanning and the future of work and society.
• Cultural change was required as much as economic change. It was necessary to understand what people in general think about inequality and the value they place on creating a more equal society. The Panel felt that attitudinal research should be commissioned into public attitudes to inequality.

The discussion next focused on the data in the presentation

• Work had been commissioned into providing more evidence on persistent disadvantage. This would look at patterns of persistent disadvantage, at the level of society as a whole and also at the level of the individual. Comparisons would be made between the current and past situations of various disadvantaged groups, and the differences in the trends that they have experienced would be spelled out. The focus would be on employment in the first instance, but would be extended to other outcome areas as the project gained momentum. The Panel agreed that it would be crucial to extend the analysis beyond employment and to look at a range of outcomes.
• Does having children produce disadvantage? For instance – does the gender gap apply only to women once they have started to have children? The Panel asked for further analysis of the gender gap, for example broken down by age bands, to assess whether or not the gap was more pronounced once women had begun a family.
• The employment gap for disabled people is improving, but not fast enough. The gap in employment outcomes for disabled people was emerging as a key priority for action.

Agenda item 2 – interim report

The Panel discussed the structure of the Interim Report with the Secretariat. The Interim Report is due for publication in January 2006, following the Call for Evidence that has just been issued.

• The Panel emphasised that the interim report needed overwhelmingly to focus on a single purpose – it must provide a compelling case that convinces people that something needs to be done.
• It was agreed that the first section of the interim report should cover the moral case for equality.
• The Panel agreed that a further section of the report would look at ‘What is equality?’ This would be followed by sections in which the report looked at
  • the evidence, including the barriers to achieving equality
  • why action is needed to reduce inequality
  • the efficacy of various types of interventions, and how barriers could be overcome
  • a consideration of the human rights case around reducing inequality
  • what are the priorities and how can these be identified
• The outline structure of the interim report would be discussed at the November meeting of the Panel.

Agenda item 3 – update paper

The secretariat presented an update on the work that had been done since the last Panel meeting, in addition to research and data gathering activity.

• The secretariat had met with research and policy colleagues across Whitehall, including at DfES, Home Office, DWP, ODPM and ONS. The programme of data gathering was continuing.
• A Call for Evidence had just been published and the Secretariat would be informing the Panel of progress on this at each of the next two meetings.
• It was suggested that the Secretariat contact Professor John Bynner at the Institute of Education for an expert view on child and adult literacy. Contacts at London Business School and London School of Economics were suggested as sources of expert information for forecasting/ horizon scanning, customer relationship management, women and work.
• The Secretariat was conducting a series of visits – as part of this programme, it would be visiting schools where work was being done to improve the outcomes of under-achieving groups.
• The expert panel at Nuffield College would convene in November – Trevor and other Panel members would check their diaries to see if they were available to attend.
• Nick Pearce issued an invitation to the Panel and the Secretariat to attend a day-long forum on social mobility at HM Treasury, run by IPPR and sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on 14 November.
• The Secretariat would invite Tania Burchardt to the next panel meeting in November.
• The December Awayday would be scheduled as an all-day meeting for one day in London. It would be used to discuss themes emerging from the Call for Evidence as well as the draft interim report.

Agenda item 4 – feedback from Reference Group

Trevor updated the Panel on the meeting of the Reference Group that he had attended the previous day. He said that the meeting was very useful and that he had found it very informative to hear, first hand, the views of stakeholders on the Panel's emerging thoughts about how the Review should be organised. He noted that a longer Reference Group meeting had been planned for January, at which there would be an opportunity to share where the Panel had got to in preparation for the publication of the interim report. Trevor advised the Panel that he would attend all future meetings of the Reference Group on the Panel's behalf.