This latest PSE report assesses the state of local public and private services and trends since 1999. It finds that while most universal services have high usage, leisure and cultural services have seen falls in usage risking a spiral of decline.
In this section you will find full details of the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom research project (PSE UK, 2012). This research revealed high levels of deprivation across the UK with severe impacts on people's lives.
Detailed findings from the PSE research were presented at the PSE UK final Conference held in June 2014 and at the PSE Scotland Conference in August 2014. 'Breadline Britain- the rise of mass poverty', by Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack, provides an overview of the main findings (One World, 2015, £9.99).
Dissemination provides details of the published outputs of the research including the extensive media coverage of the project and journal papers, books, other publications and presentations drawing on the research.
Under Reports you can find the final PSE UK reports, and PSE papers providing a Results Analysis of people's attitudes to necessities and services and Policy Responses to government consultations by the PSE team. In Working Papers there are details of the methodology, concepts and statistical analysis underlying the research.
The PSE:UK research project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol (lead), Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York. Launched in May 2010, two major surveys into the public’s perceptions of necessities and into living standards were carried out in 2012/13:
An attitudinal survey into the public’s perceptions of necessities and attitudes to services.
A large-scale survey of living standards to examine the nature, extent and causes of deprivation and social exclusion.
In addition, two qualitative research studies were undertaken:
An investigation into the experiences of living on low income during recession in Gloucestershire, the West Midlands and Strathclyde.
An exploration of the role of the family when coping with poverty in Northern Ireland.
The research uses relative deprivation to examine poverty and, in particular, the concept of necessities as set out in the consensual method. It develops and improves on the methodolgy of the ‘Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey in Britain in 1999’ (funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) which, in turn, followed the ‘Breadline Britain in the 1990s’ and ‘Breadline Britain 1983’ surveys. This method was also used in the PSE Northern Ireland survey in 2002/3. It is therefore the fourth in a series of nationally representative surveys in Britain and the second in Northern Ireland that use a consensual measure of minimum necessary living standards and direct measures of material and social deprivation rather than solely relying on proxy income data.
A summary of the aims of this research as set out in the ESRC bid can be found in Poverty and social exclusion in the UK: ten years into the new millennium. The research aims to establish:
What are the best methods for measuring poverty, deprivation, social exclusion and standard of living?
How are the different dimensions of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion related?
What is the current extent and nature of poverty and how has it changed?
What policies best address these problems?
Details of the PSE UK project team, including the UK and International advisory boards, can be found here.
Necessities of Life survey and the Living standards survey were both carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in Britain and by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) in Northern Ireland.