Elitist Britain 2019

This new report by the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission maps the educational backgrounds of leading figures across nine broad areas including politics, business and the creative industries. The study provides a snapshot of ‘who gets to succeed’ in British society.

Although there are some pockets of positive movement – the overall trajectory of public school over-representation is moving downward, for instance – change is happening slowly. There is, however, evidence that a focus on diversity and inclusion in recent years has started to make a difference. Many sectors and organisations are aware of the benefits of including a more diverse talent pool – not only in senior roles but starting from entry level.

The report makes recommendations to improve social diversity, including tackling financial barriers and reviewing university admission practices.

Key Findings:

• The United Kingdom in 2019 is an increasingly divided nation. The nature of Britain’s ‘elite’ is higher in the national consciousness than ever, with trust between significant sections of the population and those at the highest levels of politics, business and the media, under strain. The latest indications are that social mobility across the UK is low and not improving.
• Power structures are dominated by a narrow section of the population: the 7% who attend independent schools, and the roughly 1% who graduate from just two universities, Oxford and Cambridge.
• The broad trajectory of private school over-representation appears to be downwards, but change is happening slowly. Two fifths of the elite examined here (39%) attended independent schools, more than five times as many as the population at large (7%). The prospects of those educated at private schools remain significantly brighter than their peers. The proportion of the elites having attended grammar school (20%) is more clearly on the decline.
• 29% of MPs still come from a private school background, four times higher than the electorate they represent. The House of Lords is even less representative, with 57% of its members having been educated privately. The cabinet, at the time of analysis in spring 2019, was composed of 39% independently educated members. This is in stark contrast with the shadow cabinet, with just 9% - the lowest level of the privately educated in Britain’s elite outside professional football.
• Civil service permanent secretaries (59%), Foreign Office diplomats (52%), and Public Body Chairs (45%) have among the highest rates of independently educated in their ranks. Despite efforts to overhaul entry into the Civil Service, its highest levels remain highly exclusive, with 56% having graduated from Oxford or Cambridge, and 39% having attended both a private school and Oxbridge.
• Senior Judges were the most rarefied group, with two thirds attending private schools and 71% graduating from Oxbridge. In fact over half (52%) of senior judges took the same pathway from independent school to Oxbridge and then into the judiciary.
• The picture of politics at local government level is substantially different from the national level. Local government leaders have a lower proportion of those educated independently (20%) compared to MPs (29%). Additionally, local government CEOs are among the least likely to have been privately educated, at 9%, a significant contrast with their counterparts in the Civil Service in Whitehall, who sit at the other end of the spectrum.
• In a variety of sectors, women at the top are less likely to have attended Oxbridge than their male counterparts, including the judiciary (where they are 25 percentage points less likely), the House of Lords (21 percentage points), and those working as newspaper columnists or diplomats (both 17 percentage points less).
• Creative industries saw some of the lowest proportions of Oxbridge graduates, with just 2% of top selling pop music artists attending the two universities, and over 70% not attending university at all.

Recommendations:

• Universities should revolutionise their practice in relation to disadvantage, by contextualising admissions and reforming their approach to outreach and partnership, both with schools and with other universities.
• School admissions processes need to tackle social segregation in schools. High quality teaching is the most important factor for the attainment of disadvantaged young people, providing them with the basis for success later in life.
• High quality careers advice needs to be available to young people from all backgrounds. Good careers advice can be transformative for young people.
• Social diversity should be a key mission across the whole of British society to ensure we make use of the talents of people from all backgrounds. Enacting the ‘socio-economic duty’ clause of the Equality Act 2010 should form the centrepiece of this.
• Financial barriers to entry to leading industries and professions must be tackled, including unpaid internships of significant length.
• Recruitment practices should be open and transparent. Internships and entry level jobs should be openly advertised to help young people from under-represented groups get a foot on the ladder.
• Employers should adopt contextual recruitment practices that place attainment and successes achieved in the context of disadvantage, including underperforming schools and less advantaged neighbourhoods.
• Leading social mobility employers should take a sector leadership role and share best practice.

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