Progress and Pressure: Understanding economic and social change in England’s neighbourhoods
A new landmark study by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON) analyses the changes in neighbourhoods from 2001 to 2021.
We see that the 2000s were, broadly, a period of national and neighbourhood improvement. But this trend did not hold. Between 2011 and 2021 employment rates fell across the board but the sharpest drop was concentrated among the worst-off neighbourhoods, where the average rate fell back down to 46.1%. A third of the gains made in the 2000s were lost.
Analysing census data, government data and our own Hyper-Local Need Measure we have found that our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods (“mission critical”) have been overwhelmingly trapped at the bottom – remaining in the bottom 20% of neighbourhoods in England between 2001 and 2021.
We also find that disadvantaged neighbourhoods who were able to retain investment social infrastructure were able to hold together more strongly in the 2010s, than in similar neighbourhoods. We look at Big Local – a resident-led initiative, still ongoing, that in the early 2010s gave £1m to 150 of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods to spend over ten years. Local people were given time, trust and resources – something increasingly rare amid the tighter spending of the 2010s – to decide for themselves what mattered, and how best to act.
We find that labour markets remained more resilient in Big Local areas versus their counterparts. Neighbourhoods with this intervention saw steeper falls in both overall crime and anti-social behaviour than comparable areas, with total crime falling around 49% more in Big Local areas.
We estimate that the £102mn invested in social infrastructure through the Big Local programme between 2014-2020 may have contributed to £323mn in direct fiscal savings, with the potential wider benefits to society being worth around £1.1bn over 5 years.
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