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The deputy prime minister says data collected will enable the government to see if policies are working The government is to introduce an annual “report card” to assess whether it is improving people’s life chances, drawing together seven indicators starting with babies’ body weight and going all the way through life to success in adulthood to see whether it is breaking the link between social class and achievement. Nick Clegg will publish the social mobility strategy, which will include the new quantitative measures for people’s performance at different stages in their life, on Tuesday. The new sets of numbers will give governments an indicator of whether a given policy decision is working or not, and – monitored by an independent adviser, the former Labour minister Alan Milburn – would see the government come under pressure to discard those policies having adverse effects. The deputy prime minister said the indicators would be acted on if they appeared to be highlighting a problem. He said: “Yes, it will trigger a reaction – it’s a series of dials and if one of the dials shifts the wrong way, indicators are meaningless unless you act.” Clegg described meeting resistance from Whitehall as he put together the new indicators. He was told it would create a rod for his own back. A government source drew a parallel with giving responsibility for monetary policy to the Bank of England in 1997 and the more recent transfer of analysis of the economy to the Office for Budget Responsibility. The source said: “With this, we’ll know which ones we’re failing on and see which policies are working. It will take a bit of time but year-on-year we’ll see if something is getting worse.” Clegg said: “You won’t really be able to prove you’re making a difference immediately; it will go way beyond this parliament.” The new self-assessment regime for the government has been crafted in a cabinet committee led by Clegg, and although it largely draws on data already compiled, such as babies’ birth weight and the numbers taking free school meals, some tests will need new metrics drawn up. The government has already set aside £30m to undertake an entirely new cohort study. Clegg and the universities minister, David Willetts, were in Washington on Wednesday for meetings with the US vice-president, Joe Biden. Their officials have been working together on the issue for months and their teams took part in a seminar on social mobility from school to higher education. This government, as Labour before it, is grappling with research showing that the prospect of someone born in the 1970s doing better than their parents has decreased from the same metric in the 1950s. Only one in five young people from the poorest families achieve five good GCSEs compared with three-quarters from rich families. En route to Washington, Willetts said people in their 30s still appeared to have their earnings dictated by what their parents did. Now the government want to build up a more granular picture. A government source said: “Academic measures of social mobility generally compare the income and/or social class of children during their 30s and 40s with that of their parents. They won’t tell us about the impact of current policy for at least 40 years.” Brushing off charges that the new data set would merely inquire into people’s lives without being able to do anything about it, Clegg said he believed changes brought in by the coalition government would be picked up on the indicators, though it would take longer than the course of one parliament since a policy they believe the key to increasing social mobility – the pupil premium – doesn’t come into force until 2015. Clegg pointed to changes he believed would also help: increasing the income tax free threshold; changes to welfare that will see “work pay; the new requirement that those universities charging the full £9,000 tuition fee would only be able to do so if they could show how they were opening up access to less advantaged students. Willetts also said he believed those universities will be favoured who adopt the model of universities such as Texas who reserve 10% of their places for some of the state’s poorer students. The new index will be remarkable for seeking to collect data on those already grown up as the government now believes social mobility in adults is something the state can and should monitor. Another nuance will be an attempt to make the social mobility agenda relevant to the ” squeezed middle ” by making it clear that the metrics include “aspirational measures”, measuring the life chances of those in the middle classes compared with the most advantaged, alongside a major push on the opportunities for bright but poor children. While some of the indicators suggested that only the widening or narrowing gap between the most affluent and the least affluent would be picked up, particularly ones relying on free school meals as a measure of deprivation, Clegg said others in the data set would also include grades within. He also pointed to the pupil premium, saying that in improving school discipline and so learning, it would become a greater social good for those of all social backgrounds in a class. Willetts said: “We want to improve social mobility all the way up. There are lots of people in the middle who are not doing well either. My critique of what happened under Labour would be people at the very top did well and some at the very bottom did well, but the middle did badly. This is about the aspiring member of the middle classes who wants to become a doctor or a journalist but hasn’t the connections nor been to an expensive school. Your chances to do that declined significantly under Labour.” Key Whitehall departments will be held accountable for ensuring the social mobility indicators that fall within their department, with the obvious onus on them that they help drive them down. David Willetts pointed to evidence he had showing that while poor bright kids fall behind their less intelligent more affluent fellow pupils when very young, they can make that up at university and later. “University may be the first stage of the process where educational attainment, as determined by class, can actually reverse and poorer students can excel.” The new indicators will not be legislated for, meaning they can’t bind the hand of future governments – germane given the use of the indicators will only truly be felt over years – but it would be difficult for a future government to jettison the exercise. The government is at pains to point out that the drive for greater social mobility includes an attempt to improve the life chances of not just the absolutely poorest but also those on median incomes. In Washington on Wednesday David Willetts joint-chaired a session with Biden’s director of economics, Jared Bernstein, to look at what has happened as living standards have either flattened or declined. The British politicians are also impressed by mechanisms American universities have used to increase the number of poor children going on to university with the University of Texas reserving 10% of its places for the state’s brightest but poorest. Willetts praised the scheme but said that because the government did not control the admissions process of British universities it couldn’t be replicated. Instead, he pointed to similar schemes being launched around the country where Russell group universities are identifying kids doing well at GCSEs from state schools and offering them places on condition they commit and engage to extra work in the meantime. Willetts said they were to be encouraged. He did however say that as a principle it should not be one the right is afraid of: “The [Texas] programme suggests the caricature of leftwing social engineering but I don’t regard Texas to be a hotbed of leftwing socialism.” The day before, when taking part in a Q&A in Mexico City with students, in Spanish, Nick Clegg was heckled by a student Jesus Romo over his role in increasing tuition fees in the UK. University challenge Nick Clegg hoped for a break 6,000 miles away from Westminster, where his name is synonymous with increasing tuition fees, but even in a country with no fees there was no respite. No sooner had he embarked on a question and answer session with students in Mexico City than he was challenged over the government’s plan to treble tuition fees to £9,000 a year. Jesus Romo, 18, told Clegg he wanted to study in Britain next year but now had misgivings. “Given that your government seems to be saying that you cannot afford to educate your own population, do you really think it is going to be appropriate for us Mexicans to be taking up places in your universities?” he asked . Clegg told Romo his question was “not a particularly objective” one. The student told reporters that the government would not have got away with such a policy in Mexico. He said: “It is insane to think people are going to be able to pay back those sums. If he really wants more people from poorer backgrounds to go to university then those students should not have to worry about paying out huge sums.Otherwise they will not come.” After talks with Clegg the Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, suggested that British students unable to afford UK universities should come to Mexico. “We hope young British men and women will come here to take advantage of our universities,” he said. Nick Clegg David Willetts Education policy Social mobility Equality United States Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk