The prime minister has defended her government’s plan to improve social mobility, following criticisms from her former joint chief of staff.

The Social Mobility Action Plan, launched by education secretary Justine Greening last week, aims to put social mobility “at the heart of all our education policy”.

However, in an article in the Sun newspaper, Theresa May’s former aide Nick Timothy this week said the “disappointing” plan was “full of jargon but short on meaningful policies - it would have been better left unpublished”.

He accused Ms Greening of “slowing down successful policies she inherited”, citing the lack of a new round of free school applications since the election, and the “reluctance” to implement last year’s proposals to encourage universities and private schools to do more to sponsor state schools.

During Prime Minister’s Questions today, former Labour shadow education secretary Lucy Powell asked Theresa May whether she agreed with Mr Timothy.

In response, Ms May quoted the Sutton Trust as saying that the social mobility plan “will play an important role in enabling less advantaged young people to get on in life”, and the Association of Colleges saying that “the plan sets out an ambitious agenda to tackle long-standing and deep-seated inequalities which the education system struggles to overcome”.

‘It will make a real difference’

The prime minister concluded: “This is a good plan. It will make a real difference to young people’s lives.”

Later, in an appearance at the Commons Liaison Committee, she indicated that she might “refresh” the remit of the Social Mobility Commission following the resignation of all its board members earlier this month.

Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, described the commission as “just a state thinktank, which is very good and produces worthy reports but has no teeth”.

Ms May responded: “If you are asking should we take the opportunity to refresh the Social Mobility Commission, I think this does give us an opportunity to do that.”

It came as the government published a notice for the £2 million contract for an organisation to manage the Future Talent Fund, which was announced as part of the Social Mobility Action Plan.

The fund aims to test ways of helping the most academically able disadvantaged children in non-selective state schools to fulfil their potential.

Last week, the Department for Education described the project as “a new £23 million Future Talent Fund”.

However, the contract notice reveals that the government will only provide £16 million of the £21 million of grants it says the fund is expected to support in 2018-20. 

It says: “The contractor will also be responsible for raising at least £5 million additional funding to contribute to the fund; this will supplement DfE funding. The additional funding will come from a variety of alternative sources, but not from state-funded schools.”

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