As someone who cares about – and has experienced – social mobility, I’m sad to see Alan Milburn, Gillian Shephard and their colleagues leave the Social Mobility Commission (SMC), and I hope Theresa May is serious about finding the best possible ‘new blood’ for the commission. I have a few suggestions for who should try to fill Alan’s shoes (Sir Terry Leahy would be a good start), though obviously ministers will have to work hard to assure any new commissioners that the ‘bandwidth’ needed to make Britain more socially mobile will actually be available in a Brexit-fixated Whitehall machine. Before ministers even start trying to rebuild the SMC, they should do something that would make the commission worth the time of serious applicants, and an organisation that could, just, do some good. They should move it. The SMC is in the wrong place. It’s currently based in the Department for Education (DFE). That might sound sensible, but it’s not.
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