Mapping deprivation to better tackle poverty

Researchers from the University of Oxford have developed a method for identifying areas of social deprivation and their results have been used to better inform the allocation of resources to tackle poverty in the UK and beyond.

The Social Disadvantage Research Centre, led by Professor Michael Noble, has produced and updated the English Indices of Deprivation over the last ten years. The Indices measure levels of deprivation in small unit areas (up to 1,500 people) using indicators which relate to different types of deprivation such as income, employment, health, education and crime. Their methodology has been adopted by the other countries outside of the UK to construct their own indices, and was applied to South Africa through the Centre for the Analysis of South African Social Policy at the University of Oxford. In 2006 this method was recognised by Universities UK as one of the 100 discoveries and developments in UK universities that have changed the world.

Data from such indices is especially pertinent in times of fiscal restraint to ensure that the government’s limited resources are targeted appropriately. The English Indices, developed at the University of Oxford, are used as the primary basis for the allocation of resources to deprived areas in such diverse fields as neighbourhood renewal programmes, resource allocation within the health services, the Sure Start educational programme, urban transport planning, the emergency services and sports and arts facilities for children. They are also used to allocate charitable funds such as National Lottery funding.

In South Africa the indices have been used by the Department of Social Development as a tool for informing the Expanded Public Works Programme (temporary work for the unemployed) and for targeting areas to improve take up of social assistance, by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry as an input for its planning, by a large metropolitan area to deliver subsidies to the poor, by several municipalities as part of their Integrated Development Plans to promote local development, and in the African Peer Review Mechanism.

The development of indices in England is funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the work in South Africa is funded by the UK Department for International Development.