Key statistics

Macro

Participation Gap/Democratic Deficit

VOTING

• The total number of UK Parliamentary electoral registrations increased by 484,000 (1.0%) between December 2019 and March 2020; this follows an increase of 1.3 million (2.8%) in the year to December 2019.
• Of the top 10 fastest increasing areas, eight are home to large populations of students and two are in central London areas with relatively young populations.
• Total number of Parliamentary electoral registrations was 47.6 million in March 2020, the highest number on record
• Parliamentary electoral registrations, UK, 1992-2020

• 
• (Source: Electoral Statistics, UK: March 2020, ONS 2021)

CITIZEN ASSEMBLIES

• 8 citizen assemblies have occurred to date
• The 2017 Citizens' Assembly on Brexit and Democracy Matters project on English devolution.
• 6 other citizen assemblies on: Northern Ireland, Wales & Scotland plus on issues such as social care and climate change
• A handful of pioneering councils around the country-like Frome, Buckfastleigh, Newham, Portishead, and Torridge have taken back control through FlatPack Democracy (Source: https://www.flatpackdemocracy.co.uk/time-to-take-over/)

Rethinking Prosperity & the Prosperity Index (PI)

IN WORK POVERTY – relates to good quality and secure jobs

The total number of workers in poverty has gone up over the last 20 years from 2.3 million workers in 1996/97 to 4 million workers in 2017/18. Of these 4 million workers in poverty, 1.9 million are full-time employees, 1.4 million are part-time workers and 0.7 million are full-time self-employed workers. Just under half of workers in poverty in 2017/18 are full-time employees. In-work poverty (defined here as the proportion of workers who are in poverty) has risen in recent years and stood at almost 13% in 2018/19.

(Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

GREEN SPACES – relates to healthy environments

• One in eight households (12%) in Great Britain has no access to a private or shared garden during the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown, according to our analysis of Ordnance Survey (OS) map data.
• Parks are most accessible in the poorest areas, with people in the most deprived neighbourhoods of England around twice as likely as those in the least deprived to be within five minutes’ walk of a public park (34% compared with 18%). Including playing fields, this rises to 57% compared with 42%.
• (Source: ONS, May 2020)

(Source: GreenspaceScotland)

EDUCATION

In 2018, the UK 18-year-old entry rate to university was at a record level.

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) study flags wide and in some cases growing inequalities between ethnic groups. In 2011, black Caribbean pupils were 6.5 months behind their white counterparts by the time they sat their GCSEs – that difference has now grown to 10.9 months, according to analysis of the government’s own statistics.

Disadvantaged pupils are 18.1 months of learning behind their peers by the time they finish their GCSEs – the same gap as five years ago – but in primary schools the gap increased for the first time since 2007, up from 9.2 months in 2018 to 9.3 a year later.

A key factor, the EPI says, is the rise in the proportion of pupils who live in persistent poverty, up from 34.8% in 2017 to 36.7%.

In some areas the gap is even wider with poorer pupils in Blackpool, Knowsley and Plymouth more than two full years of education behind their peers by the end of secondary.

Gypsy/Roma pupils are almost three years (34 months) behind white British pupils at GCSE level, while Chinese pupils are two whole years ahead.

(Source: The Guardian, August 2020)

SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Our sense of belonging to our neighbourhoods across the UK declined between 2014 to 2015 and 2017 to 2018.

(Source: Social Capital in the UK: February 2020)

Universal Basic Services (UBS)

FOOD-POVERTY

• The UK’s food poverty rate is among the highest in Europe

• Nearly one in five UK children under 15 lives in a home where the parents cannot afford to put food on the table (Source: BMJ, 2019)
• Research by the Food Foundation in September 2020 found that in about 14 per cent of UK households, children and parents were unable to eat properly in the last six months because they could not afford or access food.
• Between February and October 2020 data from the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) show that 134 independent food banks distributed a total of 426,958 emergency food parcels, compared to 226,605 in the same period in 2019 – a rise of 88 per cent.
• These data represent a fraction of the food bank total – at least 961 independent food banks operate across the UK, whilst the UK’s largest food aid provider, the Trussell Trust, saw a 47 per cent increase in the number of emergency food parcels across the UK between 1 April to 30 September 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.

INTERNET

• In 2018 there were still 5.3 million adults in the UK, or 10.0% of the adult UK population who are described as “internet non-users” which is the number of adults who have either never used the internet or have not used it in the last three months
• (Source: Internet access – household and individuals, Great Britain:2020, ONS August 2020)

• In 2018, 12% of those aged between 11 and 18 years (700,000) reported having no internet access at home from a computer or tablet (PDF, 3.16MB), while a further 60,000 reported having no home internet access at all. Of those in this age group, 68% who did have home internet access reported that they would find it difficult to complete school work without it, suggesting that there may be educational implications for those without internet access

HOUSING

• The UK is below OCED average in work-life balance and housing according to the Better Life Index.

• Estimates have put the number of new homes needed in England at up to 345,000 per year, accounting for new household formation and a backlog of existing need for suitable housing.

• Research commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis from Heriot-Watt University, which identified a need for 340,000 homes each year to 2031 of which 145,000 “must be affordable homes”.

(Source: Tackling the under-supply of housing in England, House of Commons Library, January 2021)

• A poll of 2,000 adults, shared exclusively with Yahoo Finance UK, shows 62% agreed housing policy was an “important issue that has been neglected by successive governments.”

• Official figures earlier this year showed the average home costs around 7.8 times more than average full-time earnings in England. The affordability ratio has worsened over the past two decades, with property prices far outstripping wage growth.

• Meanwhile average rents have increased by 9.6% to an average of £507.50 a month since 2015, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

• The OECD reports that countries with greater average well-being also tend to be more equal (Llena-Nozal et al., 2019: 31), but acknowledges that across populations there are visible differences in well-being stories.

(Source: Llena-Nozal, A., Martin, N., and Murtin, F. (2019), “The economy of well-being: Creating opportunities for people’s well-being and economic growth”, OECD Statistics Working Papers, No. 2019/02, OECD Publishing, Paris.)