A MAJOR new piece of research shows that disadvantaged children from West Somerset have the lowest chance in England of achieving a good level of development in their early years and of getting a good job in adulthood.

The Social Mobility Index compares the chances that a child from a disadvantaged background will do well at school and get a good job across each of the 324 local authority district areas of England – and West Somerset was ranked bottom overall.

The index is the first piece of research to examine social mobility in detail at individual local area level, and it has just been published by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, a public body set up to monitor government progress in improving social mobility and reducing child poverty in the UK, among other things.

The report ranks West Somerset among a number of ‘cold spots’ in the worst performing 20 per cent of areas.

Full story in the Free Press.