Social mobility was put at the heart of central policy by the current coalition Government.

Social mobility is the mark of a good society and is a badge of fairness.

Social mobility is a measure of the degree to which the patterns of advantage or disadvantage in one generation are passed onto the next.

Current Government policy in this area enshrines the following principles:

• Fairness means everyone having the chance to do well, irrespective of their beginnings. Fairness means that no one is held back by the circumstances of their birth. Fairness demands that what counts is not the school you went to or the jobs your parents did, but your ability and your ambition. In other words, fairness means social mobility.

• Children have unimaginable – unpredictable – potential. A socially mobile society is one that is waiting for them, open to their talents, ready for their determination.

• A young person from a household in the top fifth of the income distribution is three times more likely to get 5 GCSE’s between grades A and C than a young person brought up in a household in the bottom fifth. Current education policy is squarely aimed at reducing these inequalities.

• A disproportionate number of university students come from the middle and upper classes but higher education remains the primary entry route to high-quality jobs. Current education policy is founded on dismantling the educational apartheid that currently exists between vocational and academic learning in general, and between Further Education and Higher Education in particular in a way that promotes greater social mobility.

• Research shows that professions such as Banking and Finance, medicine, law, journalism and politics have become narrower in their social representation. This an area where it is up to the professions themselves to get their houses in order, supported by appropriate Government action. The involvement of the expanded Gateways to the Professions Collaborative Forum, in which a considerable number of professional bodies have come together because they have realised that for too many professions, the dial is going the wrong way is a step in the right direction.

The Business Award enshrines the principles behind new and developing educational policy and seeks to level the playing field for the young person with ambitions to succeed in a business related career irrespective of their social background or school.