Progress in Opportunity Areas
Opportunity Areas (OAs) have been a flagship government social mobility programme, announced in 2016 and launched in 2017 to tackle entrenched regional disadvantage through place-based educational interventions. The programme was originally funded for three years and was subsequently extended by a further two. The initial six areas were announced in October 2016 (Blackpool, Derby, Norwich, Oldham, Scarborough3 and West Somerset); and a further six were announced in January 2017 (Bradford, Doncaster, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire4, Hastings, Ipswich and Stoke-on-Trent).5 Each OA developed and published a Delivery Plan which set out the OA’s areas of need, its priorities and related targets.
Using the 2022 data to assess the progress of OAs is timely as the programme finished in September 2022 and the OAs instead became 12 of the government’s 24 priority education investment areas. Unlike the rest of our annual report, we therefore compare 2022 disadvantage gap data to 2016 (not 2019) to capture each OA’s baseline. At each phase, we assess the progress of OAs in narrowing the gap between 2016 and 2022 and compare this to the national average. On this basis, we find that overall, there is a mixed picture at early years and a positive picture at key stage 2, with key stage 4 faring somewhere in between.
Early years foundation stage
In the early years, the majority of OAs in 2022 had a smaller disadvantage gap than the national average, with the smallest gap in Hastings (4.1 months) and the largest gap in East Cambridgeshire (6.7 months). This was despite Hastings having a relatively large increase in the gap between 2016 and 2022 (of +0.8 months) compared to +0.6 months nationally. In total, 8 OAs had smaller gaps than the national gap of 4.8 months.
Looking at changes over the period 2016 to 2022, there is a mixed picture for the early years. Three OAs saw an absolute improvement in the disadvantage gap – with the biggest gap reduction in Scarborough (where the gap fell by 1.4 months). A further three saw their gaps widen by less than the national average (of +0.6 months). The remaining half of OAs saw their gaps rise by more than the national average, with biggest increase in East Cambridgeshire (+1.1 months).
