
It’s been almost three years since the Prime Minister stood on the doorstep of No 10 and vowed to ‘fight against the burning injustice’ facing society. And it’s been almost a year and a half since the then chair of the Social Mobility Commission, Alan Milburn, and his team quit over what they considered a lack of progress from the Government.
Since then, the Government has appointed new Social Mobility Commissioners along with a new chair, Dame Martina Milburn, and last month the newly formed commission published its ‘state of the nation’ report.
The report hammered home some of the worrying early years trends that have been emerging in recent years: the inequality gap at age five (which EPI estimates to be equivalent to just over four months); the closure of hundreds of Children’s Centres; and the low pay and status of the early years workforce. The commission’s workforce findings chimed with EPI’s most recent report on the early years workforce, which found that some childcare workers are paid less than those in the retail sector, even when they are qualified to a similar level.
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