We welcome the Inequality Review, but it needs to be fair from the start

Brighton and Hove City Council has now launched its Inequality Review including a call for an independent chair.

As Class Divide, we welcome this. We have been pushing for a serious inquiry since last summer, when we delivered a public letter with hundreds of signatures calling on the city to face up to a hard truth:

Brighton can be prosperous and progressive on the surface, while children growing up in poverty, particularly in the east of the city, experience some of the worst outcomes in England.

In a submission to the council we argued that any credible inquiry has to look beyond hardship stories and “projects for poor people”, and examine the system itself. That includes classism, power, and how decisions get made, plus whether leaders across education, health, transport, local government and other institutions truly understand the realities of childhood poverty in this city.

A major concern: the chair role is unpaid

There is one major issue we need to name, the chair role is described as voluntary. We understand councils are under serious financial pressure, but an inequality review chaired for no pay is a problem in itself. It reveals a disconnect between how power works and what life is like for people without financial security.

An unpaid chair role immediately rules out a huge number of potential candidates, including people with lived experience of inequality and people who have the skills, credibility and independence this job requires, but who cannot afford to donate months of senior leadership time for free.

As the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission have long argued in relation to unpaid internships, asking people to work for free turns opportunity into something rationed by family wealth. The same principle applies here: an unpaid chair role shrinks the pool to those with financial security, regardless of talent or lived experience.

If Brighton is serious about tackling inequality, the process cannot start by building inequality into a key role.

Submitting evidence without fear

A process like this will only be as honest as people feel able to be. Many people who have lived experience, or who work inside public services and partner organisations, will have important things to share, but may worry about repercussions, professional relationships, or even their jobs.

In the NHS, Sir Robert Francis’s Freedom to Speak Up review was clear about a basic truth: if people fear reprisals, important concerns stay hidden and organisations cannot learn. His review focused on creating an open reporting culture where people can raise issues in the public interest with confidence they will not suffer detriment.

That principle applies here too. If we want honest evidence about what is happening inside systems and services, we need routes for people to share what they know without risking their job, their professional relationships, or their future.

That’s why we are going to launch an anonymous way for people to submit evidence to Class Divide. We will treat submissions confidentially, remove identifying details, and use what we learn to inform our contribution to the review. The goal is simple: to make sure difficult truths can be heard and acted on.

If you have lived experience, or work inside institutions and want to share what is really happening, we want this review to be a place where difficult truths can be shared safely, heard and acted on.

How you can help

• If you know someone who could be an excellent independent chair, encourage them to apply, and also encourage them to ask whether the role will be properly resourced.

• If your organisation will be submitting evidence, do not just describe need. Name what you see in systems, decision-making, and accountability.

• If you want to share insight anonymously, keep an eye on our channels in the next few weeks for details of how to do it.

  We pushed for this review because Brighton’s children deserve better than the status quo. Now we need to make sure it drives systems change, not just another description of the lives of people living with the consequences.