Fair access to professions – progress report

The government’s social mobility ‘tsar’ has said middle-class professions such as law, journalism and medicine need to do more to widen their social intake.

Former Labour minister Alan Milburn (appointed by the government as ‘Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty’) has issued a report after looking at progress on widening access to professional careers since his previous report in 2009. He says that:

  • Efforts to raise career awareness and aspiration in schools are ‘too sporadic and too unspecific’.
  • Too many employers are recruiting from ‘too narrow a range of universities and regions’.
  • Work experience and internships are becoming more important to job prospects, but they are ‘still a lottery’.
  • Selection processes for careers are still ‘too haphazard’.
  • The graduate grip on the labour market is ‘still strong’

The government issued the report during the parliamentary recess and without a press statement.

Source: Alan Milburn, Fair Access to Professional Careers: A Progress Report, Cabinet Office

Links: Report | BBC report | Guardian report | Daily Telegraph report

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