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Corrigendum to endnote 11 of chapter 1 of ‘Unleashing Aspiration: The Final Report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions’

  1. In the report Unleashing Aspiration: the Final Report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions the report cites evidence from the Sutton Trust on the proportion of senior professionals who were independently schooled. Contained within this data is a figure that ‘45% of top civil servants’ were independently schooled.
  2. In fact the Sutton Trust has to date not published analysis on the Civil Service. The data is actually sourced from publicly available information on the educational background of civil servants from Dod Online. The reference to the Sutton Trust is therefore erroneous.
  3. The footnote error originates from a research report compiled for the Panel and published in April 2009. Therefore:
    • The footnote on page 9 of the ‘Fair Access Research Report: an analysis of the trends and issues relating to fair access to the professions’ (2009) should in fact read ‘Data is sourced from an amalgamation of various reports from the Sutton Trust on educational backgrounds. Data on the educational background of top civil servants is sourced from publicly available data from Dod Online and is based on the educational background of Permanent Secretaries, Agency Chairs and Chief Executives, and current and recent Cabinet Secretaries’.
  4. The error was duplicated in the Panel’s final report. Therefore:
    • The endnote 11 on chapter 1 should in fact read ‘Data is sourced from the Sutton’s Trust’s submission to the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions with the exception of the data on top civil servants. This is sourced from publicly available information from Dod Online and is based on the educational background of Permanent Secretaries, Agency Chairs and Chief Executives, and current and recent Cabinet Secretaries’.
  5. The sample size is 109.
  6. A further rounding error occurred on page 25 of the full report where the same figure is erroneously stated as 50%. This should read as 45%.
  7. Biographical information including educational background on MPs, Peers, and civil servants is available at www.dodonline.co.uk.


Issued by the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions
24/07/09