APPG on Social Mobility Inquiry into Access into Leading Professions: Call for Evidence **CORRECTION: The deadline for submissions is 5pm Monday 1st August 2016**

The Sutton Trust is running an inquiry with the Social Mobility APPG to investigate how to increase access of people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the leading professions such as law, finance, medicine, journalism and politics.

It would build on the back of the Sutton Trust’s upcoming report, Leading People 2016, on the backgrounds of the nation’s leading people, which will kick off debate on the subject for us to look into what lies behind the headline figures.

We would welcome written evidence throughout the course of this inquiry.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm Monday 1st August 2016

Please keep your answers as focused and as concise as possible, limited to about 1500-2000 words.

1. What is being done to improve access into the leading professions?

Please keep your response relevant to the work your organisation is doing by answering –

• What practices is your organisation involved with to increase access into your profession for people from disadvantaged backgrounds?
• What are the best and worst practices for widening access to people from disadvantaged backgrounds in your profession that you are aware of?
• Do you make data publicly available relating to widening access and how are they broken down?
• Do you distinguish between diversity of ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background in any public data or internal information about employees and applicants?

2. What do we know is working to improve access into leading professions?

Please keep your response relevant to the work your organisation is doing by answering –

• Do you have any evidence showing that an initiative your organisation is involved with is making an impact to widen access to people from disadvantaged backgrounds?
• Do you think that making data publically available relating to widening access has changed, or would change, your organisation’s recruitment behaviours?
• Do you think that being involved in a social mobility outreach programme has changed, or would change, your organisation’s recruitment behaviours?
• Has your organisation signed up to the Social Mobility Business Compact and, if so, do you think doing so has changed your recruitment behaviours? If your organisation has chosen not to sign up, why was that the case?

3. What is the single biggest obstacle to improving access into leading professions?

Please keep your response relevant to the issue your organisation encounters by answering –

• Is it that not enough young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are getting into the universities that your organisation usually recruits from?
• Is it that not enough young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have the educational levels and other skills your profession requires on recruitment?
• Does the working culture of the profession you work in lend itself to characteristics often associated with affluence, such as greater confidence, creating an obstacle to access?
• Do organisations in your profession offer work experience to friends and family of staff members and clients, creating a networking effect that is a barrier to access?

To submit evidence please e-mail Oliver below.

For further details please contact:

Oliver Cardinali, Policy and Public Affairs Officer, The Sutton Trust

T:  020 7802 0620

E: [email protected]