Changing the way government identifies small areas of need and distributes funding in the UK and beyond

  • Christopher John Lloyd Dibben (Participant)
  • Zhiqiang Feng (Participant)
  • Robin Timothy Nicholas Flowerdew (Participant)

    Impact: Public Policy Impact

    Narrative

    Research into more accurate methods for measuring deprivation and ‘need’ at the neighbourhood, ‘small area level’, has led to older methods being abandoned. This has shaped government policy and practice, leading to the UK, local and central government changing where, geographically, to focus millions of pounds of spend. Our methods (Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and Health Poverty Index (HPI)) are now used extensively in public, political and media discourses as the main reference point for any discussion of the distribution of need across the UK. The IMD has now also been adopted by the governments of South Africa, Nambia and Oman.
    Impact statusOpen
    Category of impactPublic Policy Impact

    Keywords

    • REF2014 case study