A WORKER in East Renfrewshire can expect to take home almost £150 more a week than someone living in Moray, new figures reveal.
The Social Mobility Commission found the average weekly pay packet in East Renfrewshire amounts to £500 – compared to just £352.57 further north.
And East Renfrewshire’s working population are almost twice as likely to hold managerial or professional positions, according to the State of the Nation report into social mobility.
The stark gap is just one of many uncovered by the new index, which lays bare a “postcode lottery” where “the chances of someone from a disadvantaged background succeeding in life are bound to where they live”.
It found 93.8 per cent of pupils starting primary school in Fife were achieving expecting readings levels in P1, compared to just 64.8 per cent in Aberdeen.
Meanwhile, around 80 per cent of all pupils in Angus achieve the expected level in reading, writing and numeracy at P7 – rising to more than 98 per cent at S3.
But in Clackmannanshire, almost a third of pupils are falling short across the board.
East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire report the best outcomes for their young people, with both areas boasting the highest qualification levels for school leavers and the highest entry rates into further education.
Clackmannanshire again comes bottom, with just 22.4 per cent of school leavers going on to higher education, compared to 60.9 per cent in East Renfrewshire.
House prices vary from 4.4 times the average salary in East Ayrshire to over eight times the average salary in Aberdeenshire.
However, this variance is far smaller than that in England – where house prices reach 38 times the average salary in Kensington and Chelsea.
Rt Hon Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said: “The country seems to be in the grip of a self-reinforcing spiral of ever-growing division. There is a stark social mobility lottery in Britain today.
“Tinkering around the edges will not do the trick. The analysis in this report substantiates the sense of political alienation and social resentment that so many parts of Britain feel. A new level of effort is needed to tackle the phenomenon of left-behind Britain."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel