At last week’s Sutton Trust summit, Justine Greening announced a group of 11 further research schools in order to share best practice and “level up” opportunities for pupils. The education secretary also announced that the widely respected Sir Kevan Collins, the chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, would play a role as “evidence champion” and lead the charge for better use of evidence in improving outcomes for children and improving social mobility. 

Amid the general nods of good wishes at such a series of announcements, then, let me say this. It is a terrible idea, one of the worst things the Department for Education (DfE) can now be doing. And it demonstrates a government that is utterly at sea. 

Let me expand. There are three specific issues with this proposal for more use of evidence in social mobility: it won’t work, it will inevitably trip the DfE up and it’s a focus on the wrong thing at a time when there are lots of pressing things that can be sorted. 

It won’t work, because there is no evidence that schools in social mobility cold spots are struggling because they don’t know what to do. Innovation and good practice not spreading is a well-worn theme in public services, but various bits of research - such as that from Geoff Mulgan and David Albury of the Innovation Unit - suggest that barriers include a lack of real incentives, time and the countervailing force of immediate accountability pressures. In this context, we can add the specific challenges that schools in struggling communities are facing due to likely shortages of teaching staff, and them picking up the pieces from the wider public service cuts in their communities. In this context, it’s hard to see a new initiative to spread pedagogical practice, however well-intentioned, being anything more effective than holding up a hand to stop a hurricane.

‘It’ll come back to bite the DfE’

Secondly, the mantra of “evidence first, last and always” will inevitably - inevitably - come back to bite the DfE. There will, after all, come a time when ministers want to do something that isn’t backed by a whole slew of randomised control trials. Partly this will be because so much in education is contested with evidence on both sides; partly it’s because doing something new often takes politicians beyond evidence; and partly because occasionally politicians just want to do something despite what most of the evidence says - whether it’s expanding grammar schools or reducing class sizes or introducing performance-related pay. The more any secretary of state builds their castle on evidence, the more it will come crashing down when it turns to sand.

And thirdly, it’s a waste of time because however well-intentioned, moving the dial on social mobility is something that: a) no one really knows how to do; and b) will take decades anyway. As such, any focus on this risks distracting time, money and effort away from the things which do need sorting, and which will have an immediate impact. These include getting more teachers into the profession and stopping the ones we’ve got from quitting (including all of the EU nationals who are likely to start departing soon as well). Another urgent task is to get more money out of the chancellor and into schools - not by playing around with reallocating capital as was done last week, or attempting to scrap school lunches, but by winning a proper injection of properly new money. And that’s basically it. Any education secretary who made even a dent in one of those would be making far more practical headway towards improving social mobility than a thousand evidence champions. 

In 1992 John Major - being in possession of a small majority, a grumpy parliamentary party divided over Europe and a revitalised opposition - introduced the Citizen’s Charter, which was an attempt to revitalise public services and make them more consumer-friendly. The nadir of such a charter was the notorious “Cones Hotline”. It symbolised a government that was out of touch, and lacking in ideas and credibility. Some 20 years on, amidst exactly the same circumstances, the risk is that an “evidence champion” becomes seen in the same light. 

The secret adviser works in Westminster, having spent several years working in education on both the political and non-political side, in charities and on campaigns, and has worked with ministers of all political parties

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