Indices of deprivation 2004

'The Indices of deprivation' 2004 (ID 2004) is a Deprivation index at the small area level, created by the British Department for Communities and Local Government(DCLG).

It is unusual in its inclusion of a measure of geographical access as an element of deprivation and in its direct measure of poverty (through data on benefit receipts). The ID 2004 is based on the idea of distinct dimensions of deprivation which can be recognised and measured separately. These are then combined into a single overall measure. The Index is made up of seven distinct dimensions of deprivation called Domain Indices. These relate to:

History
The ID2004 is the most recent of a string of deprivation indices developed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) (the precursor to the DCLG) and the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) (the precursor to the ODPM). The most recent being the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2000 or IMD 2000 (Many still erroneously refer to the ID2004 as the IMD 2000 for this reason). The IMD 2000 was delivered at ward level whereas the ID2004 is now delivered at the higher resolution of SOA's (see below).

It is expected that the Indices will not be updated until 2008/2009 at the earliest.

The Domains

 * Income


 * The purpose of this Domain is to capture the proportions of the population experiencing income deprivation in an area.


 * Employment


 * This Domain measures employment deprivation by considering people of working age who are involuntarily excluded from the world of work, either through unemployment. ill health or family circumstances.


 * Health and disability


 * This Domain identifies areas with relatively high rates of people who die prematurely or whose quality of life is impaired by poor health or who are disabled, across the whole population.


 * Education, skills and training


 * The purpose of the Domain is to capture the extent of deprivation in education, skills and training in a local area. The indicators fall into two sub-domains: one relating to lack of attainment among children and young people and one relating to lack of qualifications in terms of skills. These two sub-domains are designed to reflect the ‘flow’ and ‘stock’ of educational disadvantage within an area respectively. That is, the children/young people sub-domain measures the deprivation in the attaining of qualifications, while the skills sub-domain measures the deprivation in the resident working age adult population.


 * Barriers to Housing and Services


 * The purpose of this Domain is to measure barriers to housing and key local services. The indicators fall into two sub-domains: ‘geographical barriers’ and ‘wider barriers’ which includes issues relating to access to housing such as affordability.


 * Living environment


 * This Domain focuses on deprivation in the living environment. It comprises two sub-domains: the ‘indoors’ living environment which measures the quality of housing and the ‘outdoors’ living environment which contains two measures about air quality and road traffic accidents.


 * Crime


 * This Domain measures the rate of recorded crime for four major crime themes – burglary, theft, criminal damage and violence - representing the occurrence of personal and material victimisation at a small area level.

Each Domain contains a number of indicators, totalling 37. Two supplementary indexes have been created as a subset of the Income domain. These relate to income deprivation affecting children and income deprivation affecting older people.

Geography
The Indices of deprivation 2004 are measured at the Lower Layer Super Output Area level. Super Output Areas were developed by the Office for National Statistics from the Census 2001 Output Areas. There are three levels, the lowest (which the Index is based upon) being smaller than wards and containing a minimum of 1,000 people and 400 households. The middle layer contains a minimum of 5,000 people and 2,000 households. The upper layer Super Output Areas have not been set.

In addition to Super Output Areas, Summary measures of the ID 2004 are presented at District level, County level and Primary Care Trust (PCT ) level.

Whilst SOA's are obviously of higher resolution than the ward level index data of the IMD2000 and therefore better at identifying "pockets" of deprivation within wards they are not without their problems. Some areas of deprivation can still be hidden because of the size of SOA's examples of this can be found by comparing central areas of Keighley using the Bradford District Deprivation Index (a Deprivation index developed by Bradford Council produced at 1991 Census Enumeration District level) with the ID2004. Additionally SOA's have to provide complete coverage of England and Wales, this combined with the minimum population and household counts within each SOA means that large areas of farm or commercial/industrial land have to be included within a residential area that borders them, if this residential area is considered deprived then when mapped that the large area of supposed deprivation (when in fact most of it has no-one living in it to be deprived) can appear to be a greater problem than many smaller completely residential SOA's which in fact more deprived people live in.