Smash the class ceiling bosses told
They should hire poorer applicants over more qualified rivals, say MPs
BOSSES should give jobs to applicants from poorer backgrounds ahead of rivals who are better qualified, MPs declared yesterday.
They called for the dice to be loaded in favour of those from less well-off families and areas to counter the advantages of wealthy backgrounds and private education.
Even doctors should be chosen using social factors instead of their level of skill and knowledge, the MPs said in a report backing ‘contextual recruitment’.
Entitled The Class Ceiling, it said thousands of talented young people will be shut out from obtaining jobs unless firms tilt the scales in their favour.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on social mobility cited the example of two London schools, a comprehensive and an independent.
It said a pupil with four A and four A stars at GCSE at Greig City Academy, Haringey, has achieved more than a similarly- qualified pupil at St Paul’s Girls’ School. This is because the average attainment at the former is less than five Cs while it is seven A stars at the later and this should be recognised, said the committee.
The report also called for a legal ban on internships as these bar young people who cannot afford to work for free or who lack contacts.
However, critics condemned the idea of skewing standards as social engineering which would damage productivity.
The report detailed how a third of MPs are privately educated alongside a third of FTSE 100 chief executives, three-quarters of the senior judiciary, most of the top 100 news journalists and more than two-thirds of British Oscar winners.
But only seven per cent of children and teenagers go to private schools. The MPs said employers should be urged to ‘consider a range of information about a candidate in addition to formal attainment measures’, including economic and social background.
They accused some bosses of unconscious bias against those from less well-off homes.
Employers look for confidence and resilience but young people with few chances to broaden their experience through sport or travel at school could find these skills hard to gain, warned the report. On medicine, it said only around one in six doctors had gone to a comprehensive.
But universities should recognise ‘that academic ability is just one crucial part of being a successful doctor’, added the MPs whose inquiry was backed by the Sutton Trust think-tank.
Tory Andrea Jenkyns, for the committee, said: ‘Our professions should reflect our communities and our country.
‘Employers would ultimately benefit from harnessing the broader experience and potential of the country as a whole and not just established groups.’
But Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs think- tank, said: ‘ Forcing employers to hire people based on background rather than on skill set is a dangerous example of social engineering which could end up encouraging discrimination rather than reducing it.
‘Such a measure would also inevitably impact output and productivity.’ He added that such a policy in medicine ‘is a very worrying concept’ while banning unpaid internships would be ‘counter-productive’ as many small firms would have to axe the posts.
Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said: ‘If businesses want to pursue these ideas, it is up to them.’ But she added: ‘Contextual recruitment means people who have worked very hard for good qualifications will be discriminated against. The idea is a mistake.’