Dedication

 

Understanding Social Deprivation in England

 

A Detailed Analysis

 

 

by Robert Hopkins

 

 

 

 

Dedication

 

 

This book is dedicated to my parents. Who often wondered

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

 

Chapter 1 Introduction and Methodology

 

Chapter 2 Social Disparity

 

Chapter 3 The Government Index

 

Chapter 4 All Together Now

 

Chapter 5 Two Tribes

 

Chapter 6 Resilience to Change

 

Chapter 7 Breaking the Crystal Ball

 

Chapter 8 A Holistic Perspective

 

Chapter 9 The Path less Travelled

 

Chapter 10 Exit Velocity

 

Chapter 11 Summary

 

Appendix 1 The IMD Measures

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preface

 

As a Senior Fellow at a University in the North-West of England, the author’s main area of specialism was Corporate Risk as expressed through the medium of the human condition.

 

He has since worked as a consultant for some of the largest organisations of their kind in the United Kingdom. These include the National Health Service, The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the National Audit Office, a number of world banks, and a major consultancy company.

 

He has spoken at many international and national conferences and written a number of books generally of interest to himself. His last book ‘Probability’ was published in 2018.

 

The contracts carried out for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister concerned the analysis of social deprivation data , and providing advice intended to help drive policy considerations.

 

The author’s interest in issues surrounding social deprivation required the development of an analysis approach to deal with the the inherent complexities within the Government database.

 

The approach that was developed employed the use of visualisation techniques to support a holistic overview which created the ability to identify a range of issues related to specific groups of councils.

 

This publication will develop structured models that make it possible to identify specific issues that apply to any council with a profile that is inconsistent from those of their peers. The statistical models developed will also allow an assessment to be made of the accuracy and fairness of the Government weightings used to create the Index of Multiple Deprivation and the resulting funding.

 

 

 

Chapter 1 Introduction and Methodology

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL DEPRIVATION IN ENGLAND - A Detailed Analysis

What is social deprivation?

It's all there in the words.

 

Deprivation - the damaging lack of material benefits considered to be basic necessities in a society

Social - relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society.

 

There are many other definitions available but all will embrace aspects of the above statements.

 

 Key words of note are;

• Damaging

• Material

• Necessities

• Welfare

 

Why is social deprivation an issue of major importance?

 

'A lack of an equal distribution of resources results in an increasing economic gap. The focus of power toward the upper levels of society creates disparity within the lower class. The lower social class, in turn, become socially deprived based on the lack of access to freedoms. A lack of power is associated with a lack of opportunity and political voice, which restricts participation in the community. Non-participation in the labour market and lack of access to basic services isolates social relations for the deprived. Social relations consist of events such as social activities, support in times of need, and ability to travel'

 

Source https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_deprivation

 

'Although there are many factors involved in social deprivation, research has indicated that an early educational intervention for at-risk children can improve their chances of improving their status. A positive educational experience plays an important role in allowing such children to advance in society. The objective in reducing levels of social deprivation is to improve children's quality of life through the educational system and later on as adults. Children who benefit from reduced social deprivation tend to stay in the education system loner, achieve better results, had lower lifetime criminal-arrest rates, and found jobs and therefore monthly earnings as adults'.

 

Source https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_deprivation

 

The United Kingdom spends around £78 billion a year supporting people and families. That can be compared to an NHS budget of some £125 billion and a Defence budget of £36 billion.

If people and families are deprived of 'necessities then what are these?

Peter Townsend in the 1970's published a research paper entitled 'Poverty in the United Kingdom'. He had previously suggested 60 indicators of social deprivation and these were used in a survey to determine the scale of poverty in the United Kingdom.

 

The indicators were derived from research that included the following;

• diet

• clothing

• fuel and light

• home amenities

• housing and housing facilities

• the immediate environment of the home

• the general conditions and security of work

• family support

• recreation

• education

• health

• social relations

 

Taken together they embrace the concept of 'poverty', often synonymous with a lack of income below a certain level.

The United Kingdom Government collects data from Local Authorities on a yearly basis to measure and monitor social deprivation. The data is collected over many indicators which are known collectively as the Index of Multiple Deprivation(IMD).

The IMD index comprises of the following high level groupings. The figures in brackets are the weighting applied to each measure in the overall calculation of the IMD. Appendix 1 contains a full description for each measure.

 

1. Income (22.5)

2. Employment (22.5)

3. Health deprivation and Disability (13.5)

4. Education Skills and Training (13.5)

5. Barriers to Housing and Services (9.3)

6. Crime (9.3)

7. Living Environment (9.3)

 

The 7 measures of deprivation reflect what are deemed to be the key contributors to social deprivation and the Government allocates funds based on the data. The 'Income' measure is not in fact measuring income directly. It is based on the number of people in an area claiming benefit and by inference 'income deprived'.

 

It is unfortunately the case that social deprivation at the individual or family level is not likely to consist of only one of the 7 measures listed above. It is highly likely that a problem in one area will mean a related set of problems in other areas.

It is important to note that the geographical areas show factors often linked with deprivation. However these areas and factors do not necessarily apply at the individual level. An individual can live in a deprived area but not be deprived.

To emphasise the importance of adequately funding measures aimed at alleviating social deprivation we can examine the effects of those with no voice on their circumstances.

 

 

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-profile-for-england/chapter-5-inequality-in-health

 

It is well known that babies born with a low birth weight tend to have more problems in later life in the following areas;

• Diabetes.

• Heart disease.

• High blood pressure.

• Metabolic syndrome. This is caused when you have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease all together.

• Obesity.

 

The aim of the rest of this book is to show through a detailed analysis the impact of the seven Government indicators individually and collectively and to demonstrate the importance of tackling social deprivation in the round rather that by concentrating on individual aspects of it. It will be shown that policies taking the holistic route will be more effective than any fire-fighting approach. Recognising and quantifying the relationships between and across the 7 key measures will enable the most effective and timely use of scarce resources.

 

Methodology

 

The Government collects social deprivation data at a Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) which is a geographic area.These super output areas were derived to cover areas that when taken together had a similar population size to make comparisons of social deprivation data similar and valid.

 

In the English database there are over 300 districts with close to 33,000 LSOA's.

 

The research that follows will use statistical and graphical output with high levels of confidence attached to them. Graphically presenting 33,000 points in full is not likely to be instructive and an approach which creates and demonstrates findings at the district level will be used to demonstrate the key findings.

 

It will be shown that a modelling of the relationships between the Government's 7 key measures of deprivation demonstrate differences in the strength and nature of those relationships which may not be recognised by the overall IMD Index score or its component measures.

 

A structural model will be created to enable us to,

 

• Identify groups of councils that have similar profiles in terms of their level of deprivation and as importantly the same pattern of relationships across the 7 deprivation measures

• The model will also identify those councils that have anomalous scores across their deprivation profile and stand alone in terms of their improvement requirements

• A key finding of this research will be to show that in towns and cities where there is a large social deprivation divide between one set of areas and others there is likely to be higher levels of deficiencies as expressed by income, educational achievement, housing and crime amongst others.

• It will be shown that crime deprivation can cross council area boundaries and cause anomalous deprivation profiles in neighbouring areas with potential consequences for funding

• A calculation will be made of the difficulties and time-scale involved in significantly improving high deprivation councils

 

 

A number of statistical methods will be used as the chapters progress. The aim is to move towards an understanding of the relationships between the 7 measures of deprivation and to calculate their power and effect. As the sophistication of the analysis increases the results will provide a more accurate and clearer picture of any issues inherent in the IMD Index weightings.

 

The database used is the government's own social deprivation database for 2015. It will be shown in later chapters that the improvement in any of the social deprivation measures may be inherently difficult and long-term in its effective nature.

The next chapter briefly examines the scale of disparity between councils in terms of their social deprivation.

 

 

Chapter 2 Social Disparity

 

Social Disparity

 

The Collins English Dictionary explains the expression 'the haves and have-nots' as the differences between the people who are wealthy and the people who are poor

 

The stark contrast between the haves and have-nots has always existed but in a recession the injustices become more painful.

 

Where are the haves and have nots?

 

The various measures of IMD have different scales. How do you compare on a standard metric income levels with health levels with housing levels?

 

The Government figures are often presented as ranked data. This means that the most deprived council area is given a rank of 1 and the least deprived somewhere just less than 33,000. The table below identifies the 10 most socially deprived council areas in England. You will notice that a council can appear more than once in the list if a number of their areas are deprived.

 

 

The least deprived areas in England are,

 

 

As we all head off to Wokingham, the borough with the highest proportion of home ownership of the six local authorities in Berkshire, we need to remind ourselves that the most socially disadvantaged will have significant problems in travelling. They are less likely to have cars and the income to offer alternative modes of travel. Areas of significant deprivation will therefore contain people who tend to be socially immobile. They may then feel 'stuck' within their environment engendering a sense of frustration and anger at their situation.

 

If we look at the overall level of deprivation across an individual area we find that Hart and Manchester are at the opposite ends of the deprivation spectrum. Note that the Government also provides the deprivation data on deciles on a score from 1 to 10

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.02.2019
ISBN: 978-3-7438-9712-0

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