A day with the Bridge Group

Guest blog by Rosanna Wakefield, IU East Ham 

One day last May I found myself in London standing outside an intimidating glass building next to St Paul's Cathedral. I was surrounded by high-profile figures, one of which had been entertaining the Queen the previous day. I can safely say this is not a normal Thursday for an Education Worker at IntoUniversity Bristol East where we spend most of our time in one of the most deprived areas in the country. I had in fact taken a day off from my normal work to sit in on a meeting with the Bridge Group.

The Bridge Group is an independent think tank which promotes social mobility by working with three expert groups to produce policy recommendations and, most recently, the Bridge Group Social Mobility Framework. Having read Alan Milburn's latest report on the current state of social mobility in the UK I wanted to gain an insight into the work being done at a policy level to help the young people we work with at IntoUniversity. The report highlighted that even if a young person from a disadvantaged background goes to university they are still far less likely to gain a graduate position in the professions. Application processes for work experience and internships lack structure and therefore naturally favour students from middle class backgrounds with the right contacts. In addition to the work that charities like IntoUniversity do to combat this, it must also be up to regulatory bodies and policy-makers to change how the system works.

I was specifically involved in a meeting with the expert group Collaborating with the Professions. What struck me as the defining discussion point of the meeting was the confusion that many professions feel about what kind of outreach work they should be doing due to a lack of evidence and an abundance of young projects with very little data. It was agreed that some kind of benchmark had to be set by the government, or individual regulating bodies, so that professions have an idea of where to start with their outreach projects and how to conduct effective data collection in order to accurately assess their impact. This is reflected in a recommendation by the Bridge Group of an anonymous peer benchmarking system akin to the Ross-Case Benchmarking Survey for universities' fundraising performance.

My work with the Bridge Group has helped me to understand the importance of high quality data for all the IntoUniversity programmes and how this data is presented to the corporate world. After 10 years IntoUniversity can show outstanding impact, the benefits of which can be seen in the continued expansion of the charity across London and Nottingham this academic year. Without such data it is understandably hard for corporates, universities and individuals to invest in projects, no matter how worthy they are. Hopefully this investment and the current drive behind social mobility will continue so that in the future we can see a real difference in how our society treats those from less fortunate backgrounds.