Social mobility tsar set to talk on drive to create fairer society

ALAN Milburn, the Government’s social mobility tsar, will explain how Britain can become a fairer place when he brings his campaign to improve life chances to Yorkshire next month.

The former Labour cabinet minister believes that in spite of rising wealth, Britain has struggled to become a fairer society, resulting in wasted potential and lower growth.

In a report published last week, Mr Milburn warned that work was no longer a cure for poverty and Government and employers both had to address the question of how to “make work pay”.

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He said benefits should be cut for wealthy pensioners and the minimum wage pushed up to improve living standards for hard-pressed workers.

He added that the economic recovery was “unlikely to end a decade-long trend of the top half of society prospering and the bottom half stagnating”.

Mr Milburn will appear as guest speaker at an event hosted by Gordons, which set a precedent among law firms when it launched an apprenticeship scheme three years ago.

Gordons is led by Paul Ayre, whose career in the legal profession can be seen as a model for social mobility.

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The football-mad teenager rose from a humble background in Newcastle to become one of Yorkshire’s best-paid lawyers.

His firm’s apprenticeship scheme scheme has offered 10 young people from ordinary backgrounds a chance to enter the legal profession, which is dominated by privately educated members of the upper middle class.

Mr Ayre is proud of the apprenticeship scheme. He told the Yorkshire Post: “It was groundbreaking within the law.

“The apprentices are doing very well. They have been a great success.”

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He said clients have responded well to the scheme and seem to recognise it as a point of difference in a crowded legal market.

“It is more in line with their own values and the things that matter to them.

“It’s a distinguishing factor for Gordons among law firms.

“We are committed to it and invest a lot of time on it internally on the training and structure for them.

“It’s a big part of the business now,” he said, adding that the Leeds and Bradford firm continues to take in graduate entrants.

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He said Gordons looks for intelligence, determination and attitude when it hires apprentices.

“If people have the aptitude and the attitude, then really their background and their status isn’t a determining factor.”

Mr Ayre added: “What we say to them at the outset is the firm will back them and if they end up becoming a partner, that’s great.

“But the only caveat we have is they must work hard.

“We also tell them that if we get a sense that’s not happening, the support is not there from the firm.

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“It’s a very simple dynamic and we are very clear and consistent with them throughout.

Fair to them, they work very hard and are good kids.”

The legal sector is facing major upheaval from the introduction of alternative business structures, new technology and from clients who are now demanding more for less.

Mr Ayre said: “The law is undergoing a massive change. You have got to have an open mind in terms of how you structure your firm and deliver your services.”

He said the dialogue with clients is much more commercial and the practice of professionals being able to dictate how things are done to clients is no longer an option.

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Mr Ayre said: “I also want the firm to be a much more modern dynamic entity that has all sorts of people in it and is not under any kind of hierarchy. I’m not saying we have got that right, but we have a good stab at it.”

The Yorkshire Post is presenting the event at The Queens hotel on the early evening of November 6.

To attend, email [email protected]

Mr Milburn appeared at a similar event in Leeds last year, soon after being appointed chair of the social mobility commission.