One of the new Labour government’s five missions is the opportunity mission, which aims to “break down barriers to opportunity”. It's clear that Labour understands that breaking down barriers to opportunity requires action outside the school gates as well as within them, to tackle barriers to opportunity such as poverty and poor housing. But there’s a risk that, as they start to implement this mission, the messy reality of governing means that the difficult cross-government and cross-sectoral work to tackle these broader barriers to opportunity falls by the wayside, with limited political bandwidth and economic resources focused on the ‘easier’ policy levers that can be pulled within a single government department.

On 9 July the Fairness Foundation published a report, Deepening the Opportunity Mission, that aims to demonstrate why the new Labour government needs to tackle inequality before they can make real progress on the opportunity mission, what kinds of policy goals might be useful in orientating government policy towards tackling inequality as a result, and how to work across government to make progress on tackling inequalities as part of a wider shift to mission-driven government and working practices.

During this webinar, the report’s analysis and recommendations were discussed and situated within the wider context of the debate about mission-driven government by an expert panel.

Speakers:

• Hamida Ali, Head of Policy and Programmes, Future Governance Forum
• Emma Norris, Deputy Director, Institute for Government
• James Plunkett, Chief Practices Officer, Nesta
• Melanie Field, independent adviser (report co-author)
• Will Snell, Chief Executive, Fairness Foundation (chair and report co-author)

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