The government is putting class at the heart of its equalities agenda by creating a new unit that will make tackling white working-class inequality a priority.

The unit, which the minister for women and equalities, Bridget Phillipson, will announce on Wednesday, will sit within the Office for Equality and Opportunity and examine disparities linked to class and socioeconomic background across all ethnic groups.

Improving outcomes for white working-class people will be a focus of its work, even though government sources insisted it would not be a dedicated white working-class unit.

It comes as part of a government shake-up of its equalities work that will result in the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) being abolished. Social class will not, however, be given a new legal status as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

The unit will act as a centre for government analysis of class and socioeconomic inequalities in public services and outcomes.

One of its first priorities will be the introduction of the socioeconomic duty, which will force public bodies to consider how their decisions could reduce inequalities felt by lower income families, caused by socioeconomic disadvantages such as transport and services.

Alun Francis, the chair of the SMC, accused ministers of making a false claim to justify its closure, saying it was “not true” that there were no examples of the watchdog directly informing government policy.

Francis also questioned whether the new unit would be more effective, arguing that class was a “messy concept” to organise policy around and warned that equating being working class with disadvantage risked being “deeply patronising”.

Phillipson is expected to announce plans to change the way deprivation is measured across the country, with an assessment on how funding is distributed across services such as childcare and health.

The new unit is being established as the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) is abolished. The SMC was established in 2010 to monitor progress on social mobility and advise ministers.

Government insiders are thought to believe the commission has not been effective enough in guiding policy, given it can only advise ministers when requested.

Some of the 20 civil servants who work in the Cabinet Office and supported the SCM’s work are expected to move to the new unit.

The SCM’s latest report, titled State of the Nation, says “entrenched disadvantages” lie in former industrial communities across Britain, which face “extreme regional differences”, fewer job opportunities and poorer childhoods.

An independent inquiry into white working-class educational outcomes found Britain’s education system was not “serving the interests of white working-class children”.

It also said high-performing primary and secondary schools in England should be encouraged to admit more disadvantaged pupils from white working-class backgrounds to help reverse a continuing crisis in underachievement.

At the time of its conclusion in June, Phillipson, the then education secretary, said “for the first time in a long time white working-class children have a government that will fight for them”.

She added that generations had been “robbed of opportunity” and “the communities in this report are my communities. I know what they’ve given this country and what this country has failed to give back.”

The inquiry was commissioned by Star Academies and supported by the Department for Education to understand why white working-class children were the lowest performing demographic in England’s school system.

The Sutton Trust educational charity warned at the time against setting one disadvantaged group against another, noting that disadvantaged young people from Black Caribbean backgrounds were just as unlikely to become top earners.