Chairman's Message
I am delighted to report that in early 2011 the Government announced that it had awarded £125 million to the Sutton Trust as the lead charity in partnership with Impetus Trust to establish a new major programme to boost the attainment of some of the country’s most disadvantaged children. The winning bid was announced following an open competition involving 14 charities undertaken by the Department
for Education.
The Education Endowment Fund (EEF) will over the next decade seek innovative proposals from schools, teachers, local authorities and charities to improve the performance of poor pupils in the country’s lowest performing schools - creating a lasting educational legacy for 100,000s of disadvantaged children.
The Sutton Trust’s work has up to now been primarily focused on improving ‘top-end’ social mobility – ensuring that our most
academically able children from all backgrounds access the country’s top universities and professions. But the country’s mobility challenge is as much about raising basic school results so the poorest children fulfil their potential and leave school prepared for life.
I see the EEF as a culmination of the Sutton Trust’s work. The Trust is primarily a do tank – we fund initiatives, evaluate them thoroughly and if they work persuade others, notably Government, to take them up. So we view the EEF as a gigantic do tank which by trialling and evaluating promising initiatives will have an unprecedented opportunity to inform and influence the way Government spends its billions on supporting disadvantaged children.
More details will be unveiled when the EEF is officially launched in July 2011. Meanwhile, the Sutton Trust’s core work I am glad to say continues to flourish, as this summary of activities during 2010
demonstrates.
I am often asked when abroad whether Britain remains a class-divided society. The assumption tends to be that in this country, more than any other, family background, rather than raw talent, determines success in life. The dramatic General Election results in May 2010 only fuelled these suspicions further.
The Sutton Trust’s analysis of the school and university backgrounds of the 650 new Members of Parliament revealed that the class of 2010 was indeed a highly privileged group. Over a third of MPs are from fee paying schools, which educate just 7% of the school population. Among the new MPs are 20 from Eton College alone.
Those holding high office are even more socially elite. Just under two thirds of the newly formed Cabinet went to independent schools, accessible only to those families who can afford school fees. The Prime Minister meanwhile re-established another academic tradition. Every former PM since the war (apart from his predecessor Gordon Brown) who went to university, attended one institution: Oxford. The Labour Party’s new leader, Ed Miliband, their future hope for PM is, needless to say, also an Oxonian.
Some British commentators would claim that just by recording these facts equates somehow to a crude ‘class war’. But what surprises those outside these shores is just how dramatic the figures are - and how easily accepted they seem to be in British life, as they are the way it has always been.
For the Sutton Trust, the changed political landscape of 2010 only confirmed the continuing need for
its work to improve social mobility through education. So we were extremely pleased that 100 days
after the Coalition came into being the Deputy Prime Minister announced in a major speech
that the Government’s Number One social policy aim would be to improve social mobility.
The question of course is how to deliver on this deceptively simple aim. After 13 years of tireless
work at the Trust trying to do just this, we are perhaps uniquely qualified to know that this is no easy task.
2010 was another hugely successful year for the Trust with exciting developments across the breadth of our work from the early years to university access. With our partners Impetus Trust, we unveiled a new major early years initiative to invest in successful interventions working with disadvantaged parents and their children aged 0 to 5 so that children from low income homes are equally prepared for the start of school. Evaluation of our projects remains a key priority. The outcomes for our project offering private tuition in mathematics to 100-150 academically able GCSE pupils from non-privileged homes are eagerly anticipated.
Meanwhile 2010 witnessed another landmark for the Trust when we commissioned our 100th research project. Our research continues to have a huge impact on national debates on education. Just to highlight one example, an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for the Trust concluded that failing to improve low levels of social mobility will cost the UK economy up to £140 billion a year by 2050 - or an additional 4% of Gross Domestic Product. The waste of talent due to low levels of social mobility in the UK will cost us vastly in financial terms.
Another important study was our latest annual survey of attitudes of school children towards higher
education. This found that less then half of pupils said they would apply to university if fees rose to £7,000 a year. It was partly on the basis of this evidence that the Trust made public its grave concerns about the Government’s decision to cut university teaching budgets by 80%, and allow universities to treble fees in England.
Most universities have subsequently announced that they will charge the maximum of £9,000 a year. English graduates will face two to three times the average debt of graduates in the US. An obvious concern for social mobility is that fees on this scale will deter many students from lower and middle income homes from higher education in general, and from the prestigious universities charging the highest fees in particular. We believe that our university access work, including the Sutton Trust’s flagship summer schools, will be even more crucial in the years ahead.
So while the social mobility challenge remains stark in the UK, it heartens me to say that the Trust is also booming. As always I am indebted to the small and dedicated team at the Trust, my fellow trustees and advisory board members, as well as all the experts we work with and our countless supporters.
The Trust is grateful to the many individuals, foundations and corporate partners who have
contributed to the work of the Trust over the course of the year.
