Changes over time

The table below summarises how the key indicators have changed since the last report in 2009 and over the last decade. All of the indicators measure "bad" things, such as low income, unemployment, premature death etc. So a rise in the measure is a negative outcome, a fall is a positive one.

		Since first report	Over last decade
Housing and homelessness	Homelessness acceptances	Down	Down
	Temporary accommodation	Down	Down
	Rough sleepers in London	Up	Up (since 2003)
	Overcrowding in London	Up	Up
	Mortgage repossessions	Down	Up
	Landlord repossessions	Down	Down
Income poverty	Poverty after housing costs	Flat	Flat
	Child poverty	Down	Down
	Working age poverty	Up	Up
	Pensioner poverty	Flat	Down
	In work poverty	Up	Up
	Workless poverty	Down	Down
Inequality	Income inequality	Flat	Flat
Work and worklessness	Unemployment	Up	Up
	Receiving out of work benefits	Up	Down
	Unemployment and underemployment	Up	Up (since 2003)
	Young adult unemployment	Up	Up
Low pay	Numbers of people In low paid jobs	Up	Up (since 2005)
Low pay	Proportion of jobs that are low paid	Flat	Flat (since 2005)
Health	Infant mortality	Down	Down
Health	Premature mortality	Down	Down
Low educational outcomes	Low attainment age 11	Down	Down (since 2004)
	Low attainment age 16	Down	Down (since 2004)
	Lacking qualifications aged 19	Down	Down (since 2006)

Posted on 18 October 2011

From the table, there are three clear groups of topics - those where the indicators have improved, those that have deteriorated and those where the picture is mixed.

In health and education, the picture is positive. Mortality rates are down, both in the short and medium term. The proportion of children falling short of set standards of attainment has fallen at age 11, 16 and 19.

Conversely, the picture on employment is a negative one. The proportion of people unemployed or underemployed is higher than when we wrote the last report and higher than a decade earlier. The number of children and working-age adults in low-income working households risen as well.

The indicators on housing and poverty are mixed. Child and pensioner poverty are down, but working-age poverty is up. Official homeless acceptances are down, and even following the rise at the end of 2010, are lower than they were three years ago. But rough sleeping is up, as is overcrowding.

One way of looking at this is that the table shows the early wave of effects of the recession. Those indicators that relate to the job market changed immediately. Some areas can be ameliorated by government policy. Child poverty is a good example of that, where rises in child tax credit and child benefit brought child poverty down nationwide despite the recession. Some indicators are on much longer term trajectories, where the effects of the economic downturn will only show up in a few years if they show up at all.

Changes over time

Further pages

Topics

Boroughs