‘An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.’ (The Equality Act 2010).

In education, we are very familiar with the nine protected characteristics of the 2010 Equality Act, quite rightly ensuring that all of nine characteristics (race, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, sex, disability, age, transgender, religion or belief, pregnancy, being married or in civil partnership) are treated equally. The Act brought together 118 pieces of legislation under one banner. All schools will have their own policy on how they enshrine it within their own practices and procedures.

But the quote above comes from the first section of the Act, titled ‘socio-economic inequality’. It is not so much a protected characteristic, but rather a deep, underpinning principle which provides a foundation for the rest of the Act.

So the desire to protect those most disadvantaged in our society is not only the ‘terra firma’ for religions, charities, NGOs and educators, but it’s there in the law too.

After all the navel-gazing displayed by the commentariat following the summer rioting, it has left me thinking about how we can pay greater attention to poverty, particularly that experienced by white British families, now we are under a new government dedicated to eradicating child poverty. For almost all the rioting took place in towns and cities where socio-economic inequalities have risen since the writing of the Equality Act in 2010, typically home to high numbers of traditional white British communities.

But first, let’s go back and consider how the desire to reduce inequalities has fared, and also to consider a broader definition of poverty.

A little after the passing of the Equality Act, around 2011, the new coalition government unveiled its signature education policy designed to reduce inequalities – the pupil premium. I’ve never been a fan of this policy, partly because a) the money was largely redistributed money – it wasn’t new, and b) it slapped a label on one group of pupils – ‘disadvantaged’, and in doing so automatically assumed the rest must be ‘advantaged’. This clearly wasn’t the case, for example ignoring the group slightly above them, who also merited extra assistance. Teresa May called this group the JAMs (Just-About-Managing). They got nothing from the pupil premium, but were working all sorts of hours, doing two or three jobs to make ends meet, and often without any employment protections.  

However, the pupil premium allowed progress to be measured (disadvantaged against non-disadvantaged) and politicians are of course desperate for measurements, despite their simplicity.

On any published measurement, evaluation or report, it hasn’t been a success. The gap between the two groups has widened, despite the sizeable investment. Some have argued that the pandemic has adversely affected progress, but this is somewhat disputed by the recent Education Policy Institute report which stated in its executive summary,

 ‘While we had seen several years of progress in closing the gap up to 2017, we then started to see stagnation and subsequent widening of the gap in the early years and secondary phases, followed by a similar trend in the primary phase by 2019. So we cannot blame the pandemic alone for increases in inequalities; this trend was already beginning.’

The gap was widening before we all started wearing masks.

For those of us on the ground, the evidence gleams out in shining lights, screaming ‘things are really bad.’ Children starting school unable to walk, some unable to talk. Many yet to be toilet-trained, many unused to mixing with other children, so little experience of play save the noxious company of a screen.  I continue to be aghast at how many child-in-need cases don’t meet the threshold for social services intervention, despite the often abject living conditions for young children. It shows just how great the need is.

Suffice to say, things are not getting better for those at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. Inequalities are widening. In a recent speech to the NAHT, the new Ofsted Chief Inspector, HMCI Sir Martyn Oliver, is clearly very concerned, saying, ‘child poverty (is) something I’m really worried about, and that has knock on impacts on every area and aspect of children’s lives, and their futures.’

So I think it is fair to conclude that the last 14 years of policy, since the Equality Act, has been unsuccessful in reducing inequalities, especially for those in provincial towns and cities of the north.

Next, I’d like to consider the word ‘poor’, and also ‘poverty’. I saw at the weekend, a roundtable photograph of government ministers, assembled to herald the beginning of a Child Poverty Taskforce. This aims to bring together the various government departments to ‘improve children’s lives and life chances now, and tackle the root causes of child poverty in the long term.’

I worry this is yet another top-down initiative, noble in aspiration, but doomed to failure because it fails to put the very people whom it aspires to help front and centre in its construction, but also that it focuses too much of economic poverty. Read Darren McGarvey’s ‘Poverty Safari’ for more on this. We need to be very careful of helicoptering in well-meaning managers to launch a policy, with parcels of funding, that the local people have had no say in.  

My personal understanding of ‘being poor’ is a wider and more holistic definition, not simply related to economic hardship, important though this is. It flows from my faith upbringing, and particularly from the Catholic Social Teaching concept of ‘an option for the poor’, linked to other key ideas, such as ‘the universal destination of goods’ and ‘subsidiarity’. This last one, ‘subsidiarity’ is crucial in ensuring that decisions that are taken in areas of disadvantage are taken by those living there.  

I would argue that much poverty is actually a poverty of spirit, a lack of self-esteem and belief, a poverty of hope, and a spiritual poverty. I agree with the philosopher, Michael Sandel, in that much of the hopelessness of ‘the poor’ can be laid at the door of an over-meritocratic societal reach, where the success, as defined by the measures of our age – credentials, social status, money – is put down to hard work, effort and intelligence. Because the flipside is stark. If you have not met with these measures of success, this can only be explained by you not working hard enough. It is your fault. This leads to those with success to have legitimate grounds to look down on those without success. And being looked down upon leads rapidly to low self-esteem, lack of hope and (in some cases) anger.

When faced with a lack of hope, people are easily seduced by voices offering a different way out. Gambling companies, alcohol and other drugs, lifestyle gurus, medical obsessions. And for many who avoid taking these pathways, seeking an identity in life often lies in identifying with alterative groups, fomenting a victimhood which is then encouraged by our prevailing culture. The likes of Andrew Tate ruthlessly exploit this.

I have worked in an area of socio-economic disadvantage for the best part of two decades. In addition to a school, I have helped to run a Children’s Centre throughout that time. I have never ascribed blame to any of the people I have served, because I believe much of poverty is to do with luck and circumstance. There by the grace of God go I. The importance of luck, whether it family circumstance, natural intelligence, environment, place of birth, is by far and away the biggest factor associated with where you fall on the inequality scales.

Do people make mistakes? Make bad choices? Absolutely. And that is precisely the role of the school, or the Children’s Centre, to discuss reasons, motives and consequences. But this must be done in a climate of trust and understanding, with power dynamics reduced to the minimum.

For whilst our focus on the nine protected characteristics has sought to balance those scales, and quite rightly so, we have not paid the same attention to the socio-economic inequality – the cry of the poor – and in particular that group who are white working-class living in provincial towns and cities. Quite simply, we have showed insufficient compassion.

We have to hear their voices. We have to walk the streets with them. We have to show a far greater degree of compassion that we currently do. And yes, this has to include people who were raging at the police earlier this month. It is not comfortable, but then transformational leadership rarely is.

Too much of our discourse centres around social mobility as a panacea, often referring to those selective personal journeys from low-performing comprehensive to Cambridge University, as if copying this story is all that is required to leave the poverty behind. But in doing so, it automatically relegates the journeys of others as relative failures. What’s wrong with staying, being a good parent and serving your local community? And crucially being treated with respect, dignity and merit at the same time.

The blaming and lack of compassion is mirrored in the education sector.

You might be a pupil who has managed to improve his/her attendance, mathematics or technology whilst caring for an alcoholic mother and living in an unfurnished bedroom with two younger siblings, but your lower-than-average GCSE results may be deemed a failure, leading to post-16 options that are very limited. Whilst your service to your family has already been remarkable, it is not even noted.  

Or you might be a school that takes in a whole group of excluded pupils, a much greater proportion of pupils with social and emotional challenges, all this whilst playing an extended role in supporting wider services for families and community. However, your Progress 8 coefficient will only elicit a ‘could do better’ response from various authorities and inspectorates. The school’s service to society has already been exceptional, but this has not been even commented on.

No wonder we are struggling to attract teachers and school leaders to work in such schools. There is a harshness in our tone, and it shows in both the left and right of politics. Or as Pope Francis has said, we have ‘an indifference to poverty.’

We simply have to care more, live with those experiencing poverty, and break out of the bubbles that too many of us live in.

It also means avoiding references to ‘trickle-down economics’, to aphorisms such as ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, to glib technocratic phrases such as ‘driving up standards’. This approach has been tried over the last thirty years and it has failed, conclusively, to narrow inequalities.

Caring does not mean reducing aspiration. Quite the opposite. But we would do well to define aspiration with greater thought and subtlety. There are many different routes to a good and fulfilling life that contributes to the common good.

But that’s for another blog.

Until then, remember that at the heart of the 2010 Equality Act was a commitment to reducing inequalities. And in the 14 years since the Act was signed, we have comprehensively failed to meet that commitment.