Promoting the business case for social mobility
ARECENT report by the Social Mobility Commission – Time for Change: An Assessment of Government Policies on Social Mobility 1997-2017 – has reinforced the awareness that there has been a growing social and educational divide over the past 20 years.
Since ACCA was established as a professional body for accountants in 1904, we have held and promoted core values supporting social mobility, to ensure that no-one’s chances in life are defined by the circumstances they were born into.
We have over 198,000 members and 486,000 students worldwide and work closely with thousands of approved employers, universities, colleges, schools and other providers to support them.
Education and training are fundamental to social mobility and I was recently fortunate enough to be invited to represent ACCA at a Higher Education Academy (HEA) conference on the issue. It was very encouraging to hear the initiatives in place within higher education to encourage social mobility and to understand the challenges that institutions face.
We highlighted how, in our role as a membership body and as an awarding body in our own right, we offer open-access qualifications, flexible study routes and assessment points.
Despite studies showing how countries with a high social mobility rate enjoy much higher economic growth, in Britain we have struggled to translate our desire for a fair society into a successful strategy. Many senior professionals in the UK still fit a familiar model – privately schooled, privileged and male.
We at ACCA continue to work hard to support social mobility and have challenged successive governments to raise their game on this – to move from rhetoric to reality in terms of tackling poverty, developing skills and accessing employment.
We try to practice what we preach and admitted the first woman into the accounting profession – in 1909 – and we were also the first accounting professional body to have a female president, in 1980.
We believe that anyone with the necessary drive and ambition should be able to gain entry to the profession, regardless of their background. That is still the case today – no prerequisite qualifications are required for our foundation-level qualifications, and as a result of this openaccess ethos we have been able to develop a very diverse and inclusive membership base here in the UK. Nearly 50% of our members and students are female, while according to our 2014 social mobility survey, 88% were state school educated.
More needs to be done to promote the business case for improving social mobility. Broadening the talent pools from which employers can recruit is good for business. Diversity brings new ways of thinking and can lead to innovation and greater productivity.
Many businesses “get” this, but more needs to be done to help businesses develope inclusive recruitment processes that do not inadvertently exclude certain groups.
New access routes such as apprenticeships offer a real opportunity to join professions beyond the traditional graduate routes. We are also finalising our apprenticeship offering here in Wales, alongside our recently-launched Trailblazer apprenticeship in England.
We work with education providers, as well as employers and the Welsh Government, to enable flexible study, “earn while you learn” opportunities which help to address Wales’ skills needs.
Careers advice also has an important role to play in ensuring that people, particularly young people, are aware of the career options available to them. Recent ACCA research revealed almost a third of 16 to 18-year-olds had never received any advice on apprenticeships and that 80% of students felt most apprenticeship opportunities were in construction.
If people are not aware of the entry routes into professional careers, then inclusion will remain a massive challenge. ACCA courses show that demand for flexible, accessible and affordable learning is here to stay and is the only way to tackle barriers to entry.
Within ACCA, social mobility means that our futures are not defined by our past, that merit supersedes money and that glass ceilings should be smashed. We will continue to work towards achieving these aims.
Lloyd Powell is Head of ACCA Cymru Wales.