In October 2008, the Labour Government established a National Equality Panel (NEP) to investigate the relationships between financial inequality and certain characteristics of different types of people. IFS researchers contributed two research reports to the Panel’s deliberations. The first documented which characteristics (such as education, sex and region) had contributed most to changes in income inequality since 1968. The second paper used a range of datasets to investigate how children’s educational achievement is related to their parents’ income and social status. Findings from these papers featured extensively in the NEP's final report.