That was the career change facing Hilary Armstrong last May, when she was moved from being Labour's chief whip to take up the new Cabinet Office post of social exclusion minister.
She says the job was created in response to recognition that Labour's social exclusion work had reached a turning point. Since coming to power the Government has tried to tackle social exclusion by developing high-level policy in the Social Exclusion Unit, and then handing the implementation over to government departments.
Armstrong says this has worked, the clearest indicator being that the bottom two-fifths of society have increased their income by proportionally more than the top three-fifths, but that there is still a core group that isn't being reached. Her job is to change this.
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