Levelling Up Goals Draft Metrics

LEVELLING UP GOALS THE DEFINITIVE ARCHITECTURE TO MAP, TRACK & MEASURE YOUR SOCIAL PURPOSE & IMPACT

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

FOREWORD Rt Hon Justine Greening

The Levelling Up Goals and their associated measures provide for the first time a clear and consistent architecture for organisations to map, track and measure their social impact by delivering on their purpose.

and communities on the ground and across the country and to do that through measuring and tracking the impact of the actions in a way that the wider public can easily understand and engage with.

The problem is that our country isn’t measuring levelling up in any ongoing, systematic way. For Governments, the traditional way of assessing social mobility has been through periodic, research-intensive longitudinal studies.

They generate helpful debate as to whether we have steadily moved forwards or backwards as a country. Alongside there are book publications that also try to build an ad hoc snapshot of the reality by collating diverse and disparate research sources.

Our work shows that existing ongoing statistics collected in relation to levelling up are not fit for purpose. They are not comprehensively, effectively or meaningfully tracked and they are untransparent and inaccessible to a wider public.

The statistical evidence base on levelling up is fragmented and inadequate for the task at hand. This document seeks to address that challenge.

But principally all this work tends to be a rear view mirror on where we’ve come from in the past much more than providing insight on how to approach the future. They do not provide any sort of broader dashboard or navigation metrics to help us drive change on social mobility faster through knowing where we must act. They are not done with a purpose of holding any Government or a wider country to account on progress on levelling up. By the time we find out we are travelling in the wrong direction it is years later and the moment has passed.

Through the Levelling Up Goals architecture (www. levellingupgoals.org) working with businesses, universities, regulators and policy makers, we have already broken down the levelling up challenge into its 14 constituent parts that must be addressed if we are to succeed. The 14 Levelling Up Goals cover not only progress in education, but how well we connect talent up to opportunity and how open and progressive opportunities are. The Goals also look at the wider factors that make or break getting on in life, whether health or housing, or being on the wrong side of the digital divide, for example.

Meanwhile for businesses, environmental, social and governance measures (ESG) are too often delivered opaquely to any outside observer. Analyst ESG ratings, such as they are, are done with a purpose of managing corporate downside risks to company profitability and valuation from doing wider societal harm, rather than any sense of how much an organisation is unlocking its upside potential for positive impact. This motivation is a very different one than we represent here, which is to drive change for individuals

This architecture provides the first comprehensive basis on which to approach tracking progress on levelling up.

Throughout this exercise, we are very grateful for the support we have had from Professor Kiran Trehan and her excellent team at the University of York. In addition, we have welcomed the input and advice from the businesses and universities who are at the core of our work on social mobility, who we have called the Purpose Coalition, alongside input from a wide range of university and business leaders.

FOREWORD

The old adage of ‘what gets measured gets done’ is as true for levelling up and social mobility as it is for anything else.

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What has become increasingly obvious through this process is that as a country, we do not presently have all the necessary measures, or in other cases, the quality of measures on levelling up we need. In my commentary on the metrics for each Levelling Up Goal, we set out how we have arrived at the tracked metrics chosen but also where better data would have been preferred but is simply not currently available on an ongoing basis that means it can be regularly updated.

The challenges on a fragmented picture also result from the fact that different nations within the United Kingdom take different approaches on tracking key measures like health or education. Whilst a tailored approach is vital for delivering levelling up, the lack of some crucial datasets giving an overall picture inevitably undermines our ability to track comparable progress and hold leaders in politics, economics and civil society to account whichever nation they are in within the United Kingdom.

Perhaps most glaringly absent is the lack of any consistent, systematic tracking of socio-economic diversity in organisations in the public and private sector, to sit alongside existing diversity measures such as gender or ethnic diversity which themselves have limited reporting.

Following this phase one work, our next steps in phase two will be to use these overarching, national level Levelling Up Goal metrics to then apply them at an organisational level to ensure they can be used by all employers - whether private

or public sector, universities and other organisations across the country, alongside policymakers,to track the impact they are having with their work to help level up our country.

Working with the ‘Purpose Coalition’ of businesses and universities, we will take the Levelling Up Goal metrics and produce an organisation-based version of the above measures so any organisation can understand how to measure its impact on levelling up and therefore their wider social impact on society.

We already have multiple organisations using the Levelling Up Goals architecture to map and drive their levelling up strategies, ranging from multinationals like bp, Amazon and Cisco Systems, universities including Staffordshire, Lincoln and York St John, to organisations like the BBC, Channel 4, and within the public sector, including the Birmingham University NHS Trust. Following the second phase of work, there will be consistent metrics for those many organisations using the Levelling up Goals to comparably and consistently track their contribution to society.

The Levelling Up Goals metrics represent the first attempt to holistically and systemically track Britain’s progress towards becoming levelled up. We have never set out to meaningfully deliver equality of opportunity in Britain before and as a result we have never set out to meaningfully measure our progress.

We now have clarity on not only the Levelling Up Goals we must achieve to make Britain a fairer country with equality of opportunity but also how to measure progress against them.

It is a crucial step forward. Now, what gets measured on levelling up really can get done. And as more data becomes available we look forward to updating and improving the data sets to paint an ever clearer picture of progress.

LEVELLING UP GOALS METRICS: COMMENT ON METHODOLOGY: What data we have used and how we have used it: ‘The Levelling Up Goals has sought to develop metrics that underpin what levelling up really means under each specific Goal. This has sought to not only define the issues; but also make progress in those areas measurable and reportable.

We have mapped existing datasets where relevant that align with each of the Levelling Up Goals. This includes data that is currently used by the Office for National Statistics, Ofsted, Department for Education, Social Mobility Index, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

We have then applied the range of datasets to the most relevant Levelling Up Goals. This creates the common and measurable architecture across the various Goals.

Goal-specific comments and findings: In relation to Goal 1-4: Strong Foundations in Early Years; Successful School Years; Positive Destinations at Post 16+; Right Advice and Experiences, each centre around the issues of how we help talent flourish and also connect it to opportunities. There is a significant amount of data around these specific Levelling Up Goals, not least because of the Government’s strong focus on these areas of development Governments rightly believe we must closely track the progress of so-called disadvantaged children and young people in our education system to try to avoid the education gaps that otherwise open up.

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However, beyond the education system, the more reliance there is on non-government actors (e.g. business or civil society) to deliver on the levelling up goals, the less effectively activity and impact is tracked.

In relation to Goal 4, there is some tracking of the

extent of available careers advice via the work of the Careers and Enterprise Company but, for example, no robust data on the level or quality of work experience provided and to what extent those accessing it are from less privileged backgrounds.

Having invested in our nation’s talent we do not systemically track ongoing progress of young adults connecting up to opportunities and progress in careers once in employment.

On access to opportunity, for Levelling Up Goals 5 and 6, “open recruitment” and “fair progression”, and in relation to Levelling Up Goal 14, “reaping the rewards of diversity”, there is some limited overall data and indicators that can paint a picture of the national position but it is striking how little data there is on gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background to help us understand where the barriers are to talent flowing freely around the system. This represents a significant and crucial gap in our ongoing understanding of success on driving levelling up. Part of the next steps following this work will be to agree a working definition of socio-economic diversity against which employers can track progress.

In addition, in relation to the remaining Levelling Up Goals that look at other key challenges to deliver a levelled up Britain, it is clear that whilst there is ongoing data available, for example on Levelling Up Goal 10 digital and online access, or Goal 9 - entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses to track it is by no means the complete picture that we would wish to have in order to judged progress on levelling up. For example, it is clear that the energy transition to a low carbon economy (Goal 13) is a key change process that can be used to extend opportunity into new communities if we choose to have levelling up and net zero work in tandem but there is no specific tracking of this. Nevertheless, we have sought to use the existing statistics that come closest to showing whether the net zero shift is driving levelling up or not.

LEVELLING UP GOALS METRICS: COMMENT ON METHODOLOGY:

This document now sets out how we track progress against each of the Levelling Up Goals and in doing so, provides for the first time the set of initial measures that are annually refreshed and trackable on whether we are achieving our collective ambition of a levelled up Britain. They also begin to tell us where action is required.

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SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL YEARS Every child successfully achieving their potential in attainment and development.

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STRONG FOUNDATIONS IN EARLY YEARS

Successful school years are a crucial part of not only a young person’s academic development but also their wider personal development. The so-called attainment gap between the most and least privileged remains stubbornly high. Even prior to COVID-19, research suggested that by the time disadvantaged young people finish secondary education the difference in learning between them and their peers equated to 19 months by Key Stage 4. COVID19 and the schools shutdown has made this challenge far greater, with disadvantaged young people being far less able to manage to lessen disruption to their learning than their more advantaged counterparts.

Close the early years development gap by delivering the best possible start for every child.

Research suggests that on average 40% of the development gap between disadvantaged 16 year olds and their peers has already emerged by the age of five. Language and literacy skills - in particular a child’s word count and knowledge of vocabulary especially matter to enable them to make the best out of their initial education, and also forming friendships and relationships and with emotional development.

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Draft measures: • Percentage of pupils who achieve good passes in English and Maths by age 16 - Average Attainment 8 score, by admission basis/school type/local authority [Performance Tables] • Percentage of primary schools rated ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ (School Years Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

Draft measures:

• Percentage of secondary schools rated ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ (School Years Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of nursery providers rated ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ by Ofsted (Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of disadvantaged children achieving at least a level 4 in reading, writing and maths at the end of Key Stage 2 (School Years Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of disadvantaged children/all children achieving a ‘good level of development’ at the end of the Early Years Foundation stage. (Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of disadvantaged pupils achieving 5 good GCSEs including English and Maths. (School Years Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of children who have closed the word gap (Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, Social Mobility Index, Social Mobility Commission)

• Percentage of pupils who do not achieve good passes in English and Maths by age 19, compared to those in disadvantaged backgrounds.

(Individual Learner Record, UK Government)

SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL YEARS

Getting the best possible start in life is crucial - a strong foundation in early years education is the cornerstone of social mobility. As the 2017 DfE Social Mobility Action Plan states “Children with strong foundations will start school in a position to progress but too many children still fall behind early and it is hard to close the gaps that emerge.”

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POSITIVE DESTINATIONS POST-16 Every young person and adult to have the choice of a high quality route in education, employment or training.

There’s an adage “you can’t be what you can’t see”. Getting great access to career advice and the chance for those wider experiences that broaden horizons and set schoolwork in context are vital . It really makes the difference between a young person being able to know about opportunity and then understand the steps towards it and not. Working out how we can consistently provide high quality careers advice, support, mentoring and access to work experience is a vital step in improving social mobility and driving levelling up.

Draft measures: • Percentage of 16-24/16-18 year olds not in education, employment or training [NEET] (Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics) • Percentage of 16-18 year olds continuing in education (Longitudinal Educational Outcomes, UK Government) • Percentage of 17-30 year olds to enter higher education, and to go to the most selective institutions (National Pupil Database, UK Government) • Average earnings for graduates compared to those from the most disadvantaged (Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics)

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RIGHT ADVICE AND EXPERIENCES Access to the right advice and experiences at the right time to unlock opportunity throughout a person’s life.

Everyone’s different so making the right choices as a young adult is key - that’s how we want to make sure that everyone has a positive destination post 16 and after GCSEs. Traditionally, we’ve pushed our young people down an academic path, to A levels and then onto higher education and a degree at university. We’re seeing more young people become the first person from their family to get to university. It’s vital that this path isn’t blocked for those with the potential and who want that choice. Work by universities such as Staffordshire University or the Universities of Bradford and Lincoln show what a difference higher education can make to lives and futures in a way that doesn’t just benefit individuals, it benefits us all. Equally important is a strong choice for a nonacademic route, latterly through apprenticeships and the growing availability of T-Levels.

Draft measures: Proportion of schools/colleges by region achieving the majority of the 8 Gatsby benchmarks of good career guidance [Careers and Enterprise Co State of the Nation - these are to be updated this autumn] 1 A stable careers programme 2 Learning from career and labour market information 3 Addressing the needs of each pupil 4 Linking curriculum learning to careers.

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6 Experiences of workplaces 7 Encounters with further and higher education 8 Personal guidance

RIGHT ADVICE AND EXPERIENCES

5 Encounters with employers and employees

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OPEN RECRUITMENT Careers and professions open to people of all backgrounds through transparent, accessible and open recruitment practices.

We need open opportunities and open recruitment so that our nation’s talent can make the most of its potential. Ensuring that all careers are open to the widest possible range of young people really matters. We invest billions in our education system every year, so we need to make sure it’s not blocked from thriving as young people leave education and then go into careers.

Draft measures: • Unemployment/employment rate (Employment & Labour Market 2019 Figures, Office for National Statistics)

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- Ethnicity

- Gender

- Region

• Percentage of graduates in full-time paid employment in the UK by sex/age group/ethnicity/disability (Higher Education Statistics Agency)

Opportunities for career advancement for all based on ability and potential, not connections.

The chance to keep developing once in work and progress in a career isn’t just important from the perspective of increasing your earnings, it’s about how you can continue to feel challenged and learn even once you’ve left your school years behind. Businesses that work out how to provide those opportunities to keep growing and moving forward will do better.

Draft measures: • Percentage of employees who have been promoted in the last year [Office for National Statistics] • Percentage of employees who have been received a pay rise in the last year [Office for National Statistics] • Percentage of employees who took part in further learning opportunities or participated in career development opportunities [Office for National Statistics] • Percentage of adults participating in government-funded further education and skills / Percentage of adults in education and/or training (Office for National Statistics) • Numbers employed on zero hour contracts (thousands) (Labour Force Survey, ONS 2019) • Percentage of people aged 16 and over on zero hours contracts, by occupation (Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics)

FAIR CAREER PROGRESSION

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FAIR CAREER PROGRESSION

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WIDENING ACCESS TO SAVINGS AND CREDIT Widening access to responsible credit and closing the savings gap.

However talented a person is, being trapped in debt or being unable to access capital massively hinders access to opportunity. Whether it’s being able to afford day to day essentials and housing or putting money aside to have a decent retirement, managing money and getting good advice and skills to do so can make all the difference in people being able to make the most of their potential. So often, investing in yourself and climbing the ladder of opportunity means access to cash and capital. Those with it can, those without it can’t and that’s why Goal 7 matters.

Draft measures:

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• % of people saving into a workplace pension (Financial Lives Survey, Financial Conduct Authority) • Number of people with a bank account (Financial Lives Survey, FCA) • Adults who expect to struggle financially within the next six months (Financial Lives Survey, FCA) • Number of people with less than £100 in savings (The Money and Pensions Service)

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 8

Improving mental and physical health at all ages to boost overall well-being to allow people to fulfil their potential.

Health and wellbeing inequalities lie at the heart of driving levelling up and improving social mobility, as the Marmot Report 10 Years On set out very clearly. Good health and wellbeing are often a precursor to a person being in a position to make the most of their talents and in work, feel they can consider taking the next step in their career. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a stark light on the health inequalities our country has and how they impact on wider life. The statistics on diverging life expectancy give a clear sense of how communities even living side by side can have very different outcomes.

Draft measures: • Life expectancies at birth, per demographic and region, index of multiple deprivation (Office for National Statistics) • Percentage of people who report feeling lonely often (Active Lives Survey) • Proportion of adult/child population obese/overweight / average adult BMI (Health Survey for England, UK Government)

• Number of people in serious debt (The Money and Pensions Service)

• Average ratings of personal wellbeing (life satisfaction, worthwhile, happy, anxious), by region (Office for National Statistics)

• % of people who live within one-mile of free access to cash (Access to Cash Review - first-time study in 2019, not consistent reporting)

• Percentage of life spent in ill health by deprivation decile (Public Health England, UK Government)

GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

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EXTENDING ENTERPRISE 9

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CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Extending enterprise and entrepreneurship to all people and communities.

Closing the divide in technology access, skills, opportunities and infrastructure.

Bringing opportunities to communities and having more opportunities on the doorstep is often discussed in terms of inward investment and getting businesses to be able to invest in places that have been social mobility coldspots. But enabling people and communities to create their own jobs is perhaps the most powerful way of really driving opportunity on the doorstep. Traditionally there are some people and places that have tended to create more new companies and the opportunities that come with that. If we can embed a social norm of entrepreneurship across our country and in communities where setting up a business is less usual then it can be a powerful lever to help talent and ideas thrive wherever they are.

COVID19 has shown starkly the impact of the digital divide. For some people it’s about having poor access to the internet in the first place and the parts of our country that don’t have good broadband. In other cases, people and communities might have access to good broadband but not be able to afford a device or the necessary hardware to work and learn on. They may find it hard to afford the data that’s needed to study or work at home. For other people it’s about a lack of skill-set or lack of confidence to get on line and join the majority of people who now carry out so much of their lives online. The digital divide is a gap we have to close if we’re to really enable equality of opportunity. The internet revolution is an opportunity for a level playing field but it also poses a growing inequality threat for those who can’t take advantage or cope in an online world.

Draft measures: • Number of SMEs, per year / by region (BEIS, Business Population Estimates) per head • Businesses per head (by region, industry, sector etc) e.g. number of businesses (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy)

Draft measures: • Proportion of households with access to a ‘device’ [Office for National Statistics] • Proportion of households with access to a ‘device’ [Office for National Statistics]

EXTENDING ENTERPRISE

CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

• Percentage of people with digital capability (UK Consumer Digital Index, 2021)

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INFRASTRUCTURE FOR OPPORTUNITY Developing the physical infrastructure that connects people and places to opportunity.

For communities with less opportunity on the doorstep, being able to get to opportunities where they are is absolutely essential. That’s why investment in the roads and railways that connect people up with opportunities matters so much.

It’s an enabler that can unlock people’s chances to go for roles that might not be on the doorstep but can turbocharge their careers. With COVID19 and the growing trend of hybrid working, both from home and in the office, it’s a real chance to lower the physical barriers to people being able to apply for jobs that aren’t on their doorstep but infrastructure for opportunities will always matter a huge amount.

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BUILDING HOMES & SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES Creating affordable quality home so people can live in safe and sustainable communities.

Communities that are safe, with a good quality of life and homes people can afford are communities that are sustainable in the long run. For communities that aren’t, they risk losing their talent and driving away the very opportunities from business investment that could transform their fortunes. It’s why place-based approaches matter so much, both from the government but also from businesses.

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Draft measures:

• Proportion of population that has convenient access to public transport (Department for Transport)

• Percentage of non-decent homes, by tenure/by region of England [owner occupied/private rented/ all social] (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) OR

• Average minimum travel time, by mode of transport and by region and by key service (National Transport Survey, Department for Transport)

• Publicly accessible green space as a proportion of urban area (Office for National Statistics)

• Measures on ‘Car ownership’ per household e.g. car access/number of drivers licenses (National Travel Survey, Department for Transport)

• Percentage of households owning their own homes (English Housing Survey / Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government)

• Private sector infrastructure investment per year, by industry/sector/ region (Office for National Statistics)

• Percentage of people renting their home (English Housing Survey / Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government)

• Public sector infrastructure investment per year, by industry/sector/ region (Office for National Statistics)

• Annual estimates for police recorded crime, England and Wales (Crime Survey for England and Wales)

• Percentage of people with a bus at least every 4 minutes, by settlement type/region/income (Department for Transport)

• Proportion of adults who believe crime has fallen in the past year (Crime Survey for England and Wales)

BUILDING HOMES & SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Draft measures:

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HARNESS THE ENERGY TRANSITION Ensure that the energy transition is fair and creates opportunities across the UK. 13

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The transition to a net zero version of Britain is a unique opportunity to see new careers and new roles but in the very places where they can make the most difference on levelling up.

People and the planet are two sides of the same coin. As we progress further with the energy transition it will become an ever more fundamental part of the debate on levelling up. Investment in the green economy is already bringing brand new opportunities to areas across the country; and it’s crucial that the transition is one that is equitable for people and communities everywhere.

Draft measures: • Proportion of industry accounted for by low carbon and renewable energy businesses (ONS) • Proportion of UK energy supplied from low carbon sources (ONS) • UK’s annual total greenhouse gas emissions, per million tonnes (ONS)

ACHIEVE EQUALITY, THROUGH DIVERSITY & INCLUSION Creating a level playing field on opportunity for all, to fully unleash Britain’s potential for the first time.

Diversity matters. The research is clear that more diverse companies make better decisions because they have a wider perspective and avoid groupthink.

The work of the Hampton-Alexander Review has been pivotal in opening up more opportunities in the most senior roles for women. The Parker Review has a similar focus on ethnic minorities. But there is a long way to go. It is wholly unacceptable that in today’s Britain there is not a single black person in the role of CEO or CFO of a FTSE 100 business.

Diversity extends beyond gender and ethnicity to sexuality, disability and other challenges that can lead to disadvantage. When we look across the leadership roles in business, the judiciary, government and politics, there is a continued skew towards those from the most privileged backgrounds. Britain will not succeed unless and until its leadership roles, wherever they are found in our society, better reflect the wider society at large. We are a diverse country and it is long overdue that we now reap the rewards of that diversity and see our diverse talent base thrive.

Draft measures: • Number of FTSE 350 meeting Hampton Alexander 33% target (Hampton Alexander Review) • Gender Pay Gap within companies (Gender Pay Gap Reports, UK Government) • Number of FTSE 350 companies with more than one Director who is a person of colour.

ACHIEVE EQUALITY, THROUGH DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

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