How can we support disadvantaged places after austerity?
As we prepare to launch Outlook 2020, Meg Kaufman looks back at the findings from last year's study on the impact of austerity.
As we prepare to launch Outlook 2020, Meg Kaufman looks back at the findings from last year's study on the impact of austerity.
As Centre for Cities prepares to launch Cities Outlook 2020 on Monday, I wanted to raise a final shout out for last year’s Cities Outlook, which focussed on the impact of austerity.
As the current government crafts policies ‘level up’ the whole country, the recommendations in Outlook 2019 look more important than ever.
It showed how austerity cuts had been felt deepest in some of the places with the most disadvantaged populations. Wakefield, for example, has seen their budget fall by over 30 per cent in the last 10 years.
As part of the What Works Network’s look at what works for the most disadvantaged places in Britain, we spent time in Wakefield and Grimsby with the other centres in the network. We were very grateful for the honest and comprehensive view both places gave us of the complex challenges they face.
These places have large populations who are mired in a cycle of disadvantage which goes something like this:
Poor educational attainment links to lack of labour market opportunities, which links to unemployment, which links to poverty, which links to health problems, which links to lack of school readiness, which links to poor educational attainment.
Substance abuse, domestic violence, crime and social isolation make things worse. Where should intervention start to solve this complicated set of challenges?
Not surprisingly, we were not able to answer that question comprehensively. As pressing as the problems of the most impoverished in disadvantaged places are, we were struck by the paucity of resources the councils could rally to help. Rather than starting with the problems of the people in these places, we took a different perspective, and produced a set of short recommendations to help the councils make their limited resources go a bit further. They offer incremental improvements rather than major overhauls.
We have not given up on the meatier issues, and plan further work this year to provide evidence-based guidance on helping the long term unemployed.
We also hope to be able to support places getting government funding from the Towns and High Streets funds. In the meantime we hope that our policy making advice might help council staff while they wait for these new resources to arrive.
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