Monthly Archives: March 2011

The future looks bleak for Deaf and disabled people in London

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Today marks the launch of a new study conducted by OPM for Inclusion London which reveals the profound barriers to equality experienced by Deaf and disabled people in London. The study, which consisted of a combination of a review of relevant literature and analysis of a selection of key British datasets, establishes a comprehensive evidence base for the social and economic characteristics of Deaf and disabled people in London and explores the impact of past and impending economic and social policies on this population.

Poverty and inequality

The findings are startling, if not entirely surprising. Nearly 18% of London’s population is disabled, with some of London’s poorest minority ethnic communities most likely to be disabled. There is a marked difference in the level of poverty and barriers to employment experienced by disabled people in London compared with non-disabled people. London’s disabled people experience significant pay inequality: their average net weekly pay in London of £344.90 is almost £50 a week less than that of non-disabled people. Additionally, more than one in three households with disabled adults (35.5%) earn less than £300 a week which compares to only 19.8% of households with no disabled adults. While it is not surprising that disabled people are more likely to be claiming multiple benefits, and have been doing so for a longer period of time, our analysis of disability benefit receipt shows that disabled people are significantly under claiming the benefits to which they are entitled.

Households with disabled people face multiple challenges in making ends meet. For example, households with disabled adults are also more likely to have disabled children living in them compared with households with no disabled adults: 18.5% of households with disabled adults have one disabled child living in the same household compared with only 10% of households with no disabled adults. Additionally, households with disabled children are also more likely to have other dependent children living in them, compared with households with no disabled children. These characteristics create multiple compounding barriers and are reflected in the high levels of poverty and unmet need in disabled peoples’ households.

Disabled people in London are less likely to hold degree level qualifications compared with non-disabled people as a result of barriers: roughly one third of disabled people (34%) in London hold degree level qualifications compared with almost half (46.6%) of non-disabled people. Furthermore, not only are disabled people more likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people, they are also much more likely to stay unemployed for a longer period of time. They are also likely to find it difficult to get permanent or full-time jobs compared to non-disabled people thus rendering their employment patterns more erratic.

Disproportionate impact of spending cuts

The overwhelming message that emerges from our analysis and review of evidence is that disabled people in London are likely to be amongst those that suffer the most from the tax, benefit and spending measures announced last year. In fact considered together, all fiscal consolidation measures announced to date are likely to result in a 20-35% loss in net income per year for a significant proportion of disabled people in London.

More specifically, they are likely to be disproportionately affected by public sector job cuts because they are more likely than non-disabled people to work in the public sector: there are approximately 114,000 disabled people working in the public sector in London who face the risk of losing their jobs.

Disabled Londoners are also likely to be disproportionately affected by the planned changes to social housing and housing benefit. This is because they are more likely than non-disabled Londoners to live in accommodation rented from the local authority and are four times more likely than non-disabled people to be receiving housing benefit.

Finally, it is important to note that although our report only discusses the financial impact of fiscal consolidation measures there is a wealth of evidence indicating that financial or economic exclusion is correlated with many other forms of exclusion and disadvantage. This means that the impacts discussed are only a starting point for understanding how spending cuts and policy changes are going to impact on disabled people in London.

To download and read the report click here.

To find out more about OPM’s work on disability click here.

By Sanah Sheikh, OPM associate fellow

Sanah Sheikh

Innovative ways of tackling health inequalities

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How can local agencies work together to reduce health inequalities within the current economic climate?  How can local agencies focus on the ‘causes of the causes’ and really get to grips with the gap in health outcomes across local communities?  And what are the conditions needed to successfully focus on the wider social determinants of health?

These were just some of the questions explored by OPM during the Delivering Reductions in Health Inequalities national conference held on 25 March, hosted by the NHS Institute for Improvement and Innovation. The event was attended by over 120 Directors of Public Health, local authority managers, healthcare professionals and charity leaders. 

Tackling the ‘causes of the causes’

The event marked the end of the Healthy Places Healthy Lives programme, a twelve-month Department of Health funded initiative, hosted and managed by the NHS Institute, aimed at developing innovative ways of reducing health inequalities in local communities.  The programme ran in 25 local areas, with local authorities and primary care trusts working with other local partners to design and deliver new approaches to tacking a ‘wicked problem’ affecting their local area.

Healthy Places, Healthy Lives builds on the Marmot Review findings, and aimed to focus on the causes of locally identified ‘wicked problems’, such as teenage pregnancy or childhood obesity, to tackle health inequalities.
OPM has been evaluating the Healthy Places Healthy Lives programme, and at the conference we shared some of our findings with the audience. 

What works in tackling health inequalities? Learning from the Healthy Places, Healthy Lives programme

The headline findings from the evaluation are that there are certain key factors which help to ensure success in getting to the root cause of health inequalities.  These factors are:

• Leadership: strong, consistent leadership by a senior champion is vital, and helps to ensure other partners to engage in the agenda.

• Alignment with broader programmes of work: linking innovative programmes with wider health improvement activity can help to secure access to funding and promote sustainability of the work.

• Understanding the ‘wicked problem: defining the area of focus according to a ‘causes of the causes’ health inequality approach to encompass and address the wider social determinants of health inequalities.

• Stakeholders, partnerships and governance: using existing partnership structures can help to save time at the start of the project, and early work to clarify governance can pay dividends in the end!

• Programme clarity and transparency: a top-led, bottom-fed approach works well, with top down guidance and bottom up identification and ownership of a local challenge. Clarity regarding expectations and support arrangements is vital from the outset.

• Support arrangements: it’s important to share learning across different areas, both about what works and what doesn’t. The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and the Fellows and Consultants working on the programme have shared learning as the project has progressed, and will continue to do so outside of the programme.

• Sustainability: Potential learning from the programme will emerge over several years and steps should be taken to ensure this is captured for both local and national audiences.  Local partnerships have been able to put plans in place to sustain the work once the programme finishes, by involving commissioners and strategic planners.

We know that different approaches are needed to really make a difference, with a shift in mindset from tackling the symptoms to fully understanding what lies behind inequalities in health outcomes. The Healthy Places, Healthy Lives programme acted as a catalyst, sharpening partners’ focus on the ‘wicked problem’ and providing momentum.

By Lauren Roberts, OPM associate fellow

Lauren Roberts

Systems not structures – A new approach to neighbourhoods

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Much of our experience of local community engagement work across local authorities over the past 20 years has been frustrating; neighbourhood forums and area committees have been established in many local areas without really living up to their promise.

Meetings attract ‘the usual suspects’ and can be overly bureaucratic, interest quickly dies when there is not a pressing problem. The best way to engage local people is to talk about something they don’t like – but this means that meetings are often hostile and difficult.

What we have learnt is that much of this frustration is not due to any profound underlying difficulty but with the way bureaucracies think about neighbourhoods.

A successful approach would involve a radically different approach to thinking about what we mean by localities and neighbourhoods – and ways of working that can engage local energy.

Some working assumptions about engaging localities and neighbourhoods:

Neighbourhoods and localities don’t have fixed boundaries

Nor are they all the same size. Simply drawing black lines on a map and trying to impose a common set of governance functions misses the point of variable geography. We think differently about our ‘place’ depending on the issue – a primary school is more local than a secondary school – and we travel further for some facilities and services than for others. Localism needs to respond to these overlapping systems of belonging and identity.

People respond well to invitations

Conventional neighbourhood or area forums are open to the public but in reality are highly selective because of the style, timing and content of meetings. A good way to engage people with expertise, experience and wisdom is to invite them – and to design an event that makes the most of what they can offer. By inviting people it is possible to build a richer mix of backgrounds and learn more about the place.

Rich conversations are more valuable than speeches

The conventional public meeting is set up to create a ‘them and us’ feeling – with presentations from council officers or councillors and a Q & A format rather than real discussion. Alternative designs – open space, world café, or just good facilitated conversation – make it possible for politicians to work alongside local people to explore multiple complex problems and begin to identify solutions.

Identify the problem first

Rather than creating a structure and then trying to find an agenda – it may be better to identify a problem to be solved and then bring together the right people to solve that problem. Different people may play a useful role, depending on what the problem is – there is no need to involve the same people all the time. By creating temporary groupings of people to solve specific problems we can ensure work is focused.

Local politicians need new skills and behaviours

Local politicians could play a crucial role as community organisers at local level but they will need new skills and sometimes new behaviours such as listening, facilitation, problem solving. The ways these are learned are not in conventional ‘taught’ programmes but through action learning, practice, coaching and honest feedback. Local politicians with these skills can be very powerful catalysts. We should not underestimate the value that could be created if more community members were confident about their ability to help others make things happen.

We’ve been involved in a number of experiments across local government, engaging local people in rich conversations on a neighbourhood basis, training councillors in listening and facilitation skills, and creating ‘pop-up’ working arrangements to solve practical problems rather than setting up elaborate governance structures. And we are happy to share learning with anyone interested.

We now want to track down other successful innovators and find out about the best experiments in localism and local engagement. We hope to set up some sort of practice exchange to capitalise on learning and build on successful approaches. If anyone would be interested, do contact me.

By Sue Goss, OPM principal

Sue Goss

What should be in a new Integration Strategy?

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The Government, and in particular the Communities and Local Government Department, is to produce a strategy on integrating communities. This strategy, fore-grounded in a speech by Baroness Neville-Jones – the Minister for Counter Terrorism – falls out of recent announcements about the future of Prevent, the current strategy which aims to stop people becoming terrorists. It reflects the clear commitment by the Government to separate interventions aimed at tackling extremists and stopping terrorists, from those aimed at building more integrated and cohesive societies.

Two reasons why a change of focus to Prevent is welcome.

Firstly, the focus on tackling terrorism – the real goal of the Prevent strategy – became dangerously conflated with a broader approach aimed at building cohesion within the Muslim community. The result was that Muslim communities felt that they were being stigmatised as terrorists, regardless of whether some of the Prevent funded work was intent on bringing about real benefits for the community. For more of our insights on the future of Prevent see our recent public service briefing on the issue.

Secondly, building a more integrated society is a good thing. There are a number of areas in England that are highly polarised and segregated on the basis of social class, race and faith. Views on immigration have hardened, with most people wanting to see immigration reduced. There is a worrying increase reported of enmity towards people who follow Islam (Lowles 2011). For some that are most critical of our record on building a multi-cultural society, there is a belief that we have ‘allowed groups to live separately with no incentive to integrate and every incentive not to’ (Goodwin 2009).

In these ways, a fresh approach to integration is necessary. But what should a new Integration Strategy contain?

Building on we know works should be the foundation of any future strategy

Firstly, the strategy should build on, and not unnecessarily unpick, much of the good work that is already taking place to build more integrated and cohesive communities. If integration is ultimately about ensuring that ‘everybody integrates and participates in our national life’, then there is a huge amount of good practice already out there, although it is by no means consistently applied. Through citizenship education, local cohesion strategies, strategies to mix social housing, social action projects and inter-faith initiatives, there have been many success stories in integrating people from disparate communities. For example the charity the Three Faiths Forum aims to help young people become confident, sensitive and effective communicators when discussing faith and belief. It supports young people to learn about how different people understand and live their faiths and beliefs and to find common ground between people of different faiths.

Need to increase and improve provision of ESOL courses

Secondly, the strategy needs to address the problem of accessing English language education. ESOL – English for speakers of other languages – is one of the only means through which many people without English as a first language can improve their English skills. But funding for this has been massively stripped back. New funding, and new forms of delivery – including through volunteer teachers – needs to be found urgently to replace what may be lost.

Put social interaction and mixing at the heart of all policy initiatives

Thirdly, there needs to be a strong focus on how social interaction and mixing can support greater integration. Improving the level and quality of interactions between members of a community, as a way to build positive relationships, is seen as central to strengthening community cohesion, and social capital and therefore integration. Social mixing and interaction can promote higher levels of inter-group collaboration, reduce prejudice and tension, and increase a sense of people being ‘in this together’. For example, the new National Citizen’s Service, which OPM are evaluating as part of a consortium, deliberately seeks to ‘socially mix’ young people, believing this will break down differences and promote cohesion.

What other policies or initiatives developed as part of the Big Society can build a similar approach? How can local community assets – such as council buildings, schools, community centres – be used to actively bring people together? What is the role of the new ‘community organisers’ in getting people to interact and work together to build social action. How can the new powers being established, such as the new community right to challenge, give people a greater say over how can make a greater contribution to integration?

The strategy needs to be honest about the huge structural barriers that stand in the way of creating a more integrated country. The school system, which will be characterised by a growing number of independent state schools and faith schools which lie outside local government control, poses a real obstacle to greater levels of social mixing. Economic decline and worklessness, can be hugely damaging to levels of social cohesion and social capital. The new strategy provides on opportunity to pull this picture together.  

Avoid over-simplification of shared ‘national’ values

Finally, the strategy should avoid providing a simple definition of shared values, based on nationality. While many people increasingly identify with being English, which is by no means a problem, not all people do. It is more likely that more people will subscribe to a broader set of inherent values which cut across nationality and race. These include an attachment to democracy, the use of a common language, charity, fairness and respect for difference, and it is more likely that these values – as opposed to one more narrowly defined by nationality – will bring more people together under the umbrella of ‘integration.’

By Ewan King, OPM director

Ewan King

Saving money whilst supporting new suppliers: seminar briefing paper

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On Tuesday 29th March OPM will be hosting a seminar to explore the vitally important issue of how public services can simultaneously achieve significant spending reductions whilst supporting civil society organisations to become providers.

Speakers include Tom Shirley, policy lead for mutuals in Francis Maude’s team at the Cabinet Office, Sophia Looney, Director of Policy, Equalities & Performance, London Borough of Lambeth, and James Allen, senior policy officer at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

At the time of writing there were still a few places remaining, and you can find out more details by clicking here. In order to get the debate started, we’ve pulled together the short briefing paper below, which highlights some of the policy background and a few of the key questions we’ll be looking to cover.

Briefing Paper – OPM seminar 29 March

Protecting organisational culture with employee ownership

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The Parfett family could have made a lot more money by selling their business to a large competitor.

Instead, they voluntarily took a 20 per cent cut and sold it to their employees. Why on earth did they do this?

First, a little background. As part of a recent Employee Ownership Association (OPM and Parfetts are members) event, OPM trustees visited the Parfetts head office to see how other companies put employee ownership into practice. Employee owned Parfetts is a cash and carry grocery supply company based in Stockport, near Manchester. Since its founding in 1980, Parfetts was a 100 per cent family-owned business. In 2008 the family sold 55 per cent to their employees. The family plans to sell their remaining 45 per cent to employees at a later date.

An uncertain future

Steve Parfett and his brother Robert are the second generation to run the company, following their father Alan. No family member appeared likely to continue running the business, so a few years ago the family looked into options for business succession.

The obvious choice was selling it to another business in the industry. But after researching many options, employee ownership arose as a very likely candidate.

Why employee ownership?

The overriding reason the Parfett family ultimately decided on employee ownership for the future of the company they worked so hard to create was because they wanted to do what was best for their employees. They wanted to retain the family-owned culture.

Directors and employees at Parfetts told us that the company is known for their excellent, friendly service. Although we didn’t talk to any customers, Parfetts sales figures suggest they must be doing something right with £290 million in turnover last year during a difficult and competitive climate.

If they had sold to a large conglomerate, the jobs of many employees, especially managers and senior executives, could have been at risk. As the Parfetts’ website says, selling to a competitor:

‘… would inevitably have left employees working in a very different organisation and vulnerable to any cuts or changes that a new owner might make. Therefore, the over-riding consideration was that the longer term interests and security of employees was taken into account. The family and board also wanted the company to remain a successful business where customers receive excellent levels of service and employees are treated with respect and rewarded for their contribution.’

The benefits of employee ownership

Moving to employee ownership can keep out external influences that might adversely affect an organisation. This is not to say that organisations should not seek external advice or ideas that may help it; indeed, this is often required. But external parties or new owners may not always have a full understanding of the customers, other relationships or nuanced reasons for doing things a certain way.

For Parfetts, if they had sold to an outside owner, the family culture may have been destroyed. Giving employees control of their organisation through ownership will help maintain the practices and culture of this successful company.

Employee ownership can also benefit employees by providing an incentive to increase productivity because they have a share in the results. One of the employee council representatives at Parfetts told us that while he does not have any hard data, anecdotally, he has seen improved employee performance and morale.

Many organisations, especially in the current climate, focus on short-term profits. So we are encouraged to see a private sector company like Parfetts take a long-term view of employee and customer benefits through employee ownership.

Some literature

If you would like some evidence for the benefits of employee ownership and examples of other organisations’ experiences, read our reports, New models of public service ownership and Shared ownership in practice.

For information on how to become an employee owned organisation read How to become an employee owned mutual – An action checklist for the public sector, written by the Baxi Partnership, Field Fisher Waterhouse, OPM and the Employee Ownership Association.

By the trustees of OPM’s Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT): Ricci Pleszkan, Leigh Johnston, Justin Kary, Sarah McDonell, Diane Beddoes

How supporting young people can improve lifetime mental health

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Without consistent, appropriate support, there’s a greater chance that mental health problems experienced during childhood and teenage years can continue into adult life. The transition that many young people experience when moving to ‘adult’ services is not always well-handled, however, and can be difficult and distressing. But new research by OPM, for the Social Care Institute for Excellence, shows how services across the country are innovating and helping to improve transitions by forming genuine partnerships with young people.

The Government’s recent strategy on mental health, No Health Without Mental Health, reminds us that one in four of us will experience a mental health problem in our lifetimes. On the day the strategy launched, actress Rebecca Front, known for her roles in ’Knowing Me, Knowing You… With Alan Partridge’ and ‘The Thick of It’, admitted she has experienced panic attacks, using the hashtag #whatstigma to encourage others to do the same. This prompted thousands of responses from people openly disclosing their own experiences of mental illness, with well known names joining the top trending movement, including Alastair Campbell, Caitlin Moran and Sue Perkins.

It feels like the penny has dropped that mental health is as important as physical health and it’s time for us to do something about it. The strategy takes an approach across the life course from early years to old age and emphasises the importance of promoting good mental health and resilience in childhood and teenage years. This seems sensible given that around half of people with lifetime mental health problems experience their first symptoms by the age of 14.

A focus on teenage years will come as welcome news to some of the young people I met recently as part of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) practice enquiry into improving transitions for young people with mental health needs. Many young people said they felt dropped or abandoned by services when they reached the age of 18 – which demonstrates that getting transitions can still be difficult. There are, however, initiatives and organisations trialing new ways of supporting transitions, and the Government’s strategy reminds us that the need to share promising practice and innovation is more urgent than ever.

The SCIE enquiry, commissioned by the Department of Health, is going to investigate and report on promising practice with a view to sharing knowledge in the workforce and young people alike. The enquiry will produce a full practice guide in Autumn 2011.

Case studies, prepared by OPM for the enquiry show how areas are tackling the thorny issue of transition. They confirm that with innovation and strong partnerships between children, adult and third sector organisations, taking a life course approach rather than cutting off services at the arbitrary age of 18 can lead to better outcomes for young people helping them to stay in college, employment and housing. To me that sounds like the kind of social justice the Government seeks to achieve with its new strategy.

By Annie Hedges, OPM fellow.

Annie Hedges

How do voluntary organisations demonstrate impact?

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Against a backdrop of concerns over effectiveness, efficiency, quality and independence, voluntary and community sector organisations will need to be clear about how they can demonstrate impact and value in ways that are relevant to their organisational structures and cultures, while satisfying the needs of funders.

Crucial for public service delivery

In the last few months the role of the voluntary and community sector (VCS) in public service delivery has become increasingly prominent. The Office for the Third Sector, for example, was renamed the Office for Civil Society by the Coalition Government, heralding the critical role that such organisations are seen to play in the ‘Big Society’ agenda.

Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society, argued that the sector’s ability to support and mobilise people puts it at the centre of the government’s mission to deliver better public services and to build the Big Society. Government policy will focus on (1) making it easier to run a charity, mutual, social enterprise or voluntary organisation; (2) getting more resources into the sector while strengthening its independence and resilience; and (3) making it easier for sector organisations to work with the state.

Changing financial pressures

VCS organisations – or ‘civil society organisations’ in the new official parlance – are seen as playing a vital role in new models of partnerships that have the potential to deliver greater choice and relevance of services in innovative and efficient ways. Statutory funding to the sector increased from £8.4 billion in 2000/01 to £12 billion in 2006/07. At the same time, the nature of this funding has changed significantly. Funding received as grants decreased over the time period from £4.6 billion to £4.2 billion, while contract funding increased from £3.8 billion to £7.8 billion.

These developments herald fundamental and ongoing changes for how the sector operates. Voluntary organisations have to build relationships based on contracts and competition and face an ongoing challenge of proving their worth or ‘impact’. It is unsurprising, therefore, that while VCS organisations are broadly positive about the attention they have been receiving under the current government, there is also a sense of nervousness.

Building capacity whilst maintaining independence

While acknowledging the diversity within the sector, there is recognition that a significant amount of capacity building is required if VCS organisations are to fulfil the challenging role expected of them in delivering an extremely ambitious public service agenda. However, given the scale and speed of public spending cuts, the extent to which appropriate and adequate investment continues to be made in the sector has been cast in doubt. In the new landscape of fiscal tightening, VCS organisations need to demonstrate more than just ‘trustworthiness’ and good intentions. Indeed, there is an expectation that they will need to demonstrate ‘effectiveness’ and ‘efficiency’.

At the same time, with closer and more direct engagement with the statutory sector as providers of public services, there is renewed concern among VCS organisations of the need to retain independence. Evidence from the Charities Commission suggests that VCS organisations that deliver public services are significantly less likely to agree that their activities are determined by their mission rather than by funding opportunities. They are also significantly less likely to agree that they are free to make decisions without pressure to conform to the wishes of funders. This is one of the consequences of the sector’s increasing engagement with the so-called ‘formal accountability regime’.

Hear more about these issues at e-seminar on 16 March

I will be contributing to discussions on this topic as a panelist for an e-seminar convened by the charity Ambitious about Autism. The e-seminar: ‘How to convince and persuade people about the real value of your work’ will be held on 16 March. Short videos of myself and the other panelists talking about some of the key issues are available at Ambitious about Autism’s website.

By Chih Hoong Sin, OPM principal.

Chih Hoong Sin

 

Experiments in e-democracy: public reading in parliament

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The public reading stage of the Protection of Freedoms Bill went live on 15th February. This fulfils a commitment made in the Coalition’s Programme for Government and is a very small first step in implementing one of the recommendations from the Wright report:

The Committee calls for the primary focus of the House’s overall agenda for engagement with the public to be shifted towards actively assisting a greater degree of public participation.

As No. 10 commented, ‘traditional consultations on new legislation have been too narrow in focus, often limited to invited experts and specialists’ In theory, the new site provides an opportunity for us all to get to grips with the implications of the Protection of Freedoms Bill and contribute to the shaping of this new legislation. In practice, I’m not so sure.

What are people saying?

I did a very rapid review of the comments on the site. There are approximately 500 comments to date (the deadline for comments was 7th March). A small handful of people comment a lot and sound knowledgeable – a couple of people make more than 25 comments each. (I don’t know if they really are knowledgeable.) A few more make between 5 and 10 comments but the great majority contributes once only. Going by the first names, fewer than 20 of the approximately 180 contributors are female. Even if you include people who only give their initials or use pseudonyms (‘DEPRESSED AND ANGRY’ and ‘Suffering’ being two of these), the number of women who contribute is still very low.

The Bill is huge in scope, ranging from the regulation of biometric data to safeguarding vulnerable groups to counter-terrorism powers and onto freedom of information and data protection. And – like all such documents – the language is opaque. The Explanatory Notes – designed ‘to help your understanding of the Protection of Freedoms Bill’ don’t help and, for anyone not already in this world, are far from explanatory.

The most popular topic for comments is recovery of unpaid parking charges: there are 99 comments in this section – around one fifth of the total – covering parking on private land, installing barriers, drink driving and so on. Some contributors tell heartfelt stories about how their lives or those of their children have been ruined by safeguarding legislation. Some people ask for help. There’s a bit of a campaign going on about bringing the monarchy within the bounds of the Freedom of Information Act too. The people who comment most are most likely to engage with the Bill itself, identifying omissions, unwanted consequences or incoherencies. I wonder whether these are the people who would have contributed to public consultations anyway, or already had means of letting their views be known.

A step in the right direction… or an empty gesture?

On the No. 10 website, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister suggest that this initiative will lead to better laws, more trust and increase the power of people over the State. I’m glad that people have commented and welcome anything that puts more information in the public domain for comment. But I can’t see how the initiative as it currently stands will help to improve law-making, increase trust or give us more power over the State. I know it’s just a pilot, but for public participation in the complex process of policy-making and legislation to be more than a gesture, a lot more than this is required.

So what more is required, who should provide it and how?

By Diane Beddoes, OPM senior fellow.

Diane Beddoes

Breaking the link between disadvantage and achievement

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The last ten years have seen significant improvements in overall achievement for 14-19 year olds, but there continues to be a strong link between disadvantage and low attainment.

Severe public sector spending cuts, combined with the replacement of the Education Maintenance Allowance, tight budgets for schools and colleges, and expected increases in university tuition fees present a challenge for the education and learning sector to find ways of protecting all students, particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Achieving this is central to the longer-term success of our economy.

Going the extra mile

While commissioners and providers try to reduce costs, it is essential that there is a sustained focus on raising the ambitions and capabilities of those most likely to under-achieve or drop out of mainstream settings.

All young people, regardless of their socio-economic background, should have fair access to educational, training and employment opportunities. This includes those from households characterised by multiple challenges, such as intergenerational worklessness, drug and alcohol misuse, poor mental health and low aspirations.

One way forward is to be more creative in reaching out to these young people and to engage them in learning opportunities that help them succeed. A recent publication by the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) and OPM, Improving outcomes for disadvantaged young people – Case studies of effective practice, demonstrates how a range of further education, private and voluntary sector providers are successfully supporting young people that are at risk of low attainment and disengagement to move back into education, training or employment.

In many case studies, mainstream providers are going the extra mile to engage and support students from areas characterised by high socioeconomic deprivation; in others, third sector, statutory and private providers are targeting their efforts on specific subgroups of young people who are often marginalised and suffering economic disadvantage, and require something more tailored than universal provision can offer. The publication sets out how practitioners have tackled the attainment gap, including the challenges they have faced and the lessons they have learned along the way.

Success factors

Going the extra mile, as the case studies reveal, does not always equate to spending more money. There are no straightforward answers; however, some important common success factors emerged from the case studies. These include ways of supporting students to ‘learn how to learn’, creating the right learning environment, more flexible use of space, working more effectively with other learning providers and celebrating achievements. All of these combine to help increase participation and retention rates.

The report will be a useful resource for those who work with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and who are seeking inspiration about how provide an effective service in these challenging times.

By Shelley Dorrans, OPM fellow, and Robert Pralat, OPM researcher

Shelley DorransRobert Pralat