(‘My Story’ – not attached. Summary is supplied below)

To me, ‘upward’ Social Mobility is the improvement of a cycle aimed at encouraging and inspiring peoples ideas to be put into practise. This, in turn, will motivate family members and communities to engage and follow this positive impact and thus minimise the dependency on Welfare Benefit and reducing numbers into the Criminal Justice system. In addition, for those who come from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds, this sense of belonging and interacting with this ‘upward mobility’ is what requires underpinning by the state.

I have produced a story ‘My Story’ that reflects the vast challenges I have experienced over a few years. As someone who has experienced a vulnerable and disadvantaged background, I am particularly as concerned about policy-making in this area to encourage social-mobility, as I am eager to play a significant part in mobilising a positive impact on people that will, ultimately, trigger an aspirational movement in communities.

‘My Story’ highlights me ‘getting their against all odds… only to be failed’. It informs the reader of my hard work, determination to succeed and the fact that I had no choice but to place all my trust and reliance into a government scheme that was meant to support the aspirations of individuals like myself who were disadvantaged. Yes, I am talking about the governments ‘Loan Guarantee Scheme’ for start-up businesses. Originally, this scheme was called the (SFLGS) Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme. Little did I know that many issues existed on this scheme that was to affect me and my viable business opportunity. As a result of the third-party interest by banks, a Government Review of this scheme would highlight:

1. Bank managers – lacking an understanding of the scheme and how to process applications
2. Banking/government procedures taking, sometimes, 8-months to complete (proving detrimental to start-ups)
3. Graham Review – highlighting many more issues responsible for failing many viable businesses and thus failing ‘people’
4. The scheme was responsible for failings hundreds (if not thousands) of disadvantaged people who otherwise would not even of got that far (source: IBAS Independent Banking Advisory Service).

As a result of all my hard work by ‘getting their against all odds’, as a direct result of the scheme its policy remit, I lost not only my viable business, but also my home (after suffering mental depression).

What made matters worse, proving more stressful for me, is when I contacted my MP. Basically, he did very little to highlight these failings in Parliament or even Westminster Hall. This is even when I submitted documented evidence highlighting the National Impact it has had on Social Mobility – those similar to me. Soon after, I found out that my MP was the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group and he did not even botehr to highlight this issues. During my homelessness, I sought another MP (same Party) who, again, did not want to address the serious issues. Instead, after I stormed out of her surgery, she wrote me a letter telling me “I should get on with my life and leave the past behind.” Very easy for this MP to say that.

Yes, MPs do NOT have a Statutory Legal Obligation to Represent. This means they can ‘pick and chose’ how they handle a particular issue. It is wrong!

‘My Story’ has a depth highlighting the consequences and overall impact these failings have had on my life – without Political support, Community support or, even, legal support. I am still struggling to get back on my feet. However, I am with knowledge of what I want to do – Support the Aspirations of the Community.

I do hope that you will be interested in ‘My Story’ – given the many challenges I had to deal with over the previous years. As ‘My Story’ highlights the fundamental basis of why Politics and policy-makers require scrutiny of the highest standard so that its service-users, ‘the tax-payer’, is protected and thus Social Mobility is enabled. In my aim to ‘get back on my feet’ and work towards my goals, once again, I have found community support to be weak and lacking in understanding.

Like Jury Service, whereby we, the Public, have a duty to play an active part in the Justice System, I strongly believe that Policy-makers should be under the same prescription whereby the tax-payer has a final say on how policy is developed and the impact on peoples lives.

eg. http://www.education2.bham.ac.uk/documents/staff/gorard_s/School_effectiveness_paper3.pdf

“If the VA residuals were actually only error, how would the results behave? We would expect CVA results to be volatile and inconsistent over years and between key stages in the same schools. This is what we generally find (Hoyle and Robinson 2003, Tymms and Dean 2004, Kelly and Monczunski 2007).”