Factors behind attainment gap of BAME children

I'm pleased that Theresa May commissioned the research that is now being published. It's always useful to have detailed and complete evidence. I'm looking forward to trawling the website for new insights.

But unfortunately the headlines so far have simply told me what we have known for many years, that many of us in the business have been saying for years, and on which some actions have already been taken. I'll admit that more should have been done, but government policy has been consistently unhelpful.

Taking education as the example, the fragmentation of the system has made it much more difficult for local authorities to police the system, and for government to hold local authorities to account. So on admissions and exclusions, academies with their 'freedoms' have fairly blatantly abused the spirit and often the letter of the law to the relative disadvantage of many ethnic groups. Similarly, the fact that most headteachers are white reflects the freedoms of governing bodies which in the past have been influenced and informed by local authorities.

On relative levels of achievement, it has been known for decades that there is a hierarchy of achievement with chinese children at the top and white working class boys and black african-caribbean children at the bottom. It's less clear what to do about this, as the determining factors are many and complicated. It isn't just poverty, for example, though poverty plays a part. If I were pressed I'd suggest that peer pressure, parental expectations, parental support, societal norms, the broadcast media, social media, casual racism, conscious racism and unconscious racism all play a powerful part.

Schools also play a key role, driven by Ofsted and performance tables, and the 'football manager' culture. The Institute for Public Policy reports that there are five times as many children in 'alternative provision' than have been officially excluded, and that many more are being pushed into 'elective home education'. You don't need me to say what this means in terms of equalities!

So, powerful though the data are, there is little new there, I fear. But what I shall be doing is thinking about what government might do to nudge, cajole and force the system in the right direction. The proper incentives and disciplines are needed.

I'm not fully convinced by 'nudge' theory but now Richard Thaler had a Nobel prize to go alongside Daniel Kahneman's, perhaps I should go back to it. However, what matters is what works, and I look forward to the government both investing in evidence-driven intervention programmes and behavioural change.

My fear is that austerity and the commitment of the government to a small state will mean that almost nothing happens in practice. I hope I'm proved wrong.

John Freeman is a social care consultant and former DCS.