Monitoring Poverty And Social Exclusion In Scotland

The series of reports, Monitoring poverty and social exclusion, produced annually since 1998 by the New Policy Institute and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has had a major impact on the debate about poverty and social exclusion in Britain, improving public understanding and holding government accountable for progress. Ever since the first report, however, there have been discussions about the need for a more Scottish-specific analysis, partly in response to a widespread view that some of the issues are somewhat different in Scotland (for example, in health and education) and partly reflecting the observation that much of the debate in Scotland takes place in a Scottish-specific context.

The first and second editions of this report, Monitoring poverty and social exclusion: Labour's inheritance (1998) and Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 1999, attracted widespread coverage and set out a base line against which the Labour Government's progress on tackling poverty and social exclusion can be measured.

Action to reduce poverty and promote social inclusion is a key long-term objective for the Scottish Executive. But how much progress has Scotland and its devolved government been able to make towards its declared goals? Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Scotland 2004 updates the last Scotland report, published in 2002, and provides an independent record of relevant trends over the past seven years. Compiled by the team responsible for the annual series of studies covering Great Britain, the choice of subject areas in this report reflects the Scottish context. Data have been assembled for a range of different indicators covering low income, employment, education, health, quality of life and social cohesion. Each section uses graphs and maps to illustrate differences relating to social class, age, gender, ethnicity and local authority area.

How can we measure poverty in the United Kingdom today, and which measures are most reliable? Is poverty related to other problems and disadvantages? Based on the largest research study on UK poverty ever commissioned, these fascinating volumes answer these questions and more, providing the most authoritative and up-to-date picture ever assembled of poverty throughout the four countries of the United Kingdom. Using state-of-the-art measurement methods, Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK looks across geography, time, and key domains like health, employment, and housing to make enlightening-and sometimes shocking-comparisons. Volume One focuses on assessing poverty through the lens of a wide range of groups, reporting on the living standards of older and younger people, parents and children, ethnic groups, and disabled people-as well as on the differing impacts of political intervention. --