The Government claims that “We’re all in this together”. But even with Eric Pickles’ 'transition grant' into account, the poorest areas will do worse out of this settlement.
The Government is fond of claiming that “We’re all in this together”. But even taking Eric Pickles’ ‘transition grant‘ into account, it is abundantly clear that the poorest areas will do worse out of this settlement.
Left Foot Forward has carried out a simple econometric analysis of the local government cuts and compared the post-transition grant “change in estimated ‘revenue spending power’ 2011-12” with the 2007 index of multiple deprivation – the last analysis available. The figures speak for themselves.
In London, there is a strong correlation between the two variables. Poor areas like Hackney (-8.9%), Newham (-8.9%), Tower Hamlets (-8.9%), and Islington (-8.8%) find themselves with the deepest cuts while richer areas like Richmond (-0.61%), Havering (-1.71%), and Harrow (-1.9%) are best off.
The x-axis covers the index of multiple deprivation (50 is the most deprived area) while the y-axis covers the percentage fall in ‘revenue spending power’.
A similar pattern takes place in metropolitan areas. Here Manchester, Liverpool, South Tyneside, and Knowsley get take the maximum hit of -8.9% while less deprived areas like Solihull (-3.49%), Dudley, (-3.39%), and Trafford (-3.79%) do far better.
UPDATE 18.41:
It has been pointed out to me that the local government figures include NHS support for social care. If this were excluded the picture would be even more stark.
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180 Responses to “Eric Pickles’ cuts target Britain’s poorest areas”
13eastie
@BenM LOL!
ZaNuLabour commissioned a political report every few years (at tax-payers’ expense) and used it to justify throwing money at friendly councils and potential Labour voters for its own electoral gain.
Afterwards it becomes clear (unsurprisingly) to others that these areas might offer the best prospects for efficiency savings.
“Data” presented by LFF is not independent – it was commissioned by Labour; LFF has cherry-picked a couple of dozen data points from almost 400; IMD is simply a New Labour construct; the indices themselves are not designed to give a quantitative indication of relative deprivation and are only “useful” for creating a rank order; the trend-line is bound to show a linear relationship if you ask the software for a linear regression; the IMD is being used in such a way that as to imply that the scale from 0-50 encompasses the entire range of deprivation from Auschwitz to Utopia – it obviously does not (on a global scale of relative deprivation all localities in the UK would score almost equally and be close to the best off), but to recognise this would be to destroy the R-squared value on the charts; the scoring criteria and weightings are arbitrary; the “measurements” are from 2005; and, most importantly of all, LFF has ignored completely the rates of absolute spending per head.
Excepting the foregoing I’m feeling totally skewered!
Christine Quigley
RT @fletchersimon: RT @leftfootfwd: Eric Pickles' cuts target Britain's poorest areas http://bit.ly/gjxG3I
Ken Livingstone Team
RT @leftfootfwd: @ValShawcross Please RT – Eric Pickles' cuts target Britain's poorest areas http://bit.ly/dTBtmC
Paul Maybin
RT @leftfootfwd: @ValShawcross Please RT – Eric Pickles' cuts target Britain's poorest areas http://bit.ly/dTBtmC
Niki Rosenbaum
RT @leftfootfwd: @ValShawcross Please RT – Eric Pickles' cuts target Britain's poorest areas http://bit.ly/dTBtmC