Key Resources and Statistical Data for Monitoring the On-going Impact of Public Spending Cuts
This section provides helpful resources for monitoring the ongoing impact of public spending cuts. It contains statitical data and websites & blogs which monitor the impact of public spendig cuts on a continous basis.
Websites and blogs which monitor the on-going impact of public spending cuts
Sources of statistics and data sets that can be searched to find local information to support an impact assessment
Websites and blogs which monitor the on-going impact of public spending cuts
This section contains links to blogs and websites which discuss and analyse the impact of public spending cuts. These are useful in creating a broader picture of the effects of the cuts on the lives of ordinary people, as well as their cumulative impact.
Academic websites with useful resources about spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| London School of Economics and Political Science | 'Social Policy in Cold Climate' | Research programme designed to examine the effects of the major economic and political changes in the UK since 2007, on the distribution of wealth, poverty, inequality and social mobility. |
| Centre for Labour and Social Studies | CLaSS Website | Provides news and reports relating to inequality in the UK. |
| EDF Research Network | 'Hard Times for Equality' | Links to research and materials looking at the impact of cuts on equality and human rights. |
| Equality Challenge Unit | Website | Provides news, reports and research supporting equality. |
Campaign group websites with useful resources about spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| False Economy | False Economy's Website | Provides news by local area in regards to the spending cuts and the effects they are having on that area, plus details of any campaigns in that area against the cuts. |
| Inclusion London | Website | Website for an organisation promoting equality for deaf and disabled people in London, which provides news and resources, as well as updates on campaigns against cuts. |
| Gingerbread | Website | Provides news, statistics and links to blogs about issues affecting single parents, including welfare reform. |
| Left Links Directory | ATOS news articles | A collection of news articles about changes to the Work Capability Assessment implemented by ATOS. |
| DWP Unspun | Welfare Guide | Guide explaining the recent changes to benefits in the UK. |
Blogs that cover the impact of spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| The Guardian | Blog | Public sector news blog offering comment on cuts across the UK. |
| We Are Spartacus | Blog | Blog about disabled people's views on welfare reform. |
| Diary of a Benefit Scrounger | Blog | Blog that shares and analyses information about cuts to welfare provisions, particularly in the context of illness and disability. |
| Birmingham Against the Cuts | Blog | Provides comment, news and information about cuts in Birmingham. Provides an insight into the use of benefit sanctions by government bodies and alternatives to austerity. |
| Benefit Scrounging Scum | Blog | Blog about disablism and the cuts. |
| Where's the Benefit? | Blog | Blog about issues surrounding cuts to benefits for disabled people. |
| A Girl Called Jack | Blog | Campaigner and blogger who writes about welfare reform issues. |
| War on Welfare | Blog | Blog supporting the WOW campaign against the recent welfare reforms. |
| Labour Representation Committee | Blog | Blog highlighting the progress of LRC’s stop welfare reform campaign. |
| Community Links | Blog | Blog examining news on welfare reform and its impacts. |
| Disabled People Against Cuts | Blog | Blog documenting the impact of austerity cuts and recent changes to welfare reform, and how disabled people have been affected. |
| Disability Now | Blog | Blog about disablism with posts about welfare reform. |
| Disability Voices | Blog | Blog providing news and analysis of public sector cuts affecting disabled people. |
| Rage Against the Coalition | Blog | Blog about austerity. |
| Arbitrary Constant | Blog | Blog which posts about cuts to benefits for disabled people. |
Campaigns against spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| The Poverty Alliance | ‘Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform’ | A coalition of over 40 key third sector organisations, faith groups, unions and charities from across Scotland, calling for a fairer welfare system. |
| Trade Union Congress | ‘Good Services and Decent Welfare’ | Campaign to defend welfare, and to expose the effects of austerity on services, benefits and working people. |
| Parkinson’s UK | ‘Disability Benefits Campaign’ | Campaign against cuts to disability benefits and for a better welfare system to support people with Parkinson's and their carers. |
| Boycott Workfare | Campaign Website | UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare payments. |
| Macmillan Cancer Support | ‘Welfare Reform Campaign’ | Campaign for a fairer welfare system for those with terminal illnesses such as cancer. |
| Black triangle campaign | Campaign Website | Campaign fighting for the rights of disabled people, through opposing recent changes to work capability assessments which reclassify disabled people as fit for work. |
| Barnet Alliance | Campaign Website | Campaign against cuts to public services in the London Borough of Barnet. |
| War on Welfare | Campaign Website | Campaign supporting resistance against recent welfare reforms and their negative impacts on cross sections of society. |
| London Voluntary Service Council |
Campaign Website | Survey campaign working to collate evidence from voluntary and community organisations across London about the impact of the recession on this sector. |
| Public and Commercial Services Union | Campaign Website | Part of a united campaign in conjunction with other trade unions and charities, against welfare cuts. |
| Who Benefits? | Campaign Website | Campaign aiming to give a voice to people supported by benefits. |
| Disabled People Against Cuts | Campaign Blog | Organisation that campaigns against cuts to services for disabled people. |
| We Will Be Heard | Campaign Website | Website of an organisation that campaigns against austerity, with information on campaigns. |
| The Hardest Hit | Campaign Website | Website of a campaign group organising against cuts to disabled people's services, providing information about benefits, reports and stories about the impact of cuts on individuals. |
| The Broken of Britain | Campaign Blog | Organisation that aims to give a voice to disabled people in various campaigns against welfare reform. |
| Action for ESOL | Campaign Blog | Campaign fighting against cuts to funding for English Language learning for speakers of other languages. |
| Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations | 'Taking it On' Campaign | Welfare reform campaign aiming to bring to attention the impact of welfare cuts on communities in Scotland. |
Sources of statistics and data-sets that can be searched to find information to support a local impact assessment.
The following table provides links to a range of websites which allows you to search for statistics on a range of issues such as numbers of people in a particular area claiming certain benefits, spending on adult social care, numbers of hospital beds etc. Some of these data sets can be searched by demographic group (for example broken down by age and gender), some allow searches over a period of time making it possible to track trends and changes over a period of months or years. Some simply provide a useful source of background information. for how the public spending cuts are affecting your local area or a particular group of people, which will be useful for including within your own Equality Impact Assessment.
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| Crisis | The homelessness monitor: England by Suzanne Fitzpatrick et al (2015) | Report tracking the baseline account of homelessness established in 2011, and analyses key trends following that period. It also highlights emerging trends and forecasts some likely changes and identifying the developments likely to have the most significant impacts on homelessness. For the home site of Crsisis and some of their reports concerning the 4 nations of the UK visit here. |
| Crisis | The homelessness monitor: Wales by Suzanne Fitzpatrick et al (2015) |
A report on the impact on homelessness and the effects of welfare and housing reform in Wales. It also highlights emerging trends and forecasts some of the likely changes likely to have the most significant impacts on homelessness. For the home site of Crsisis and some of their reports concerning the 4 nations of the UK visit here. |
| Wales Council for Voluntary Action | All Wales Database of Voluntary Organisations in Wales | Information on the type and number of active voluntary organisations within Wales |
| Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | Open Data Communities | DCLG's Linked Open Data site. This site enables users to use DCLG statistics to build data set 'apps' around themes such as housing and deprivation. There are some examples on the site of apps that have already been built. |
| Office of National Statistics | Neighbourhood Statistics | The Office of National Statistics publishes general neighbourhood statistics (including employment-related figures, educational attainment and training figures, numbers claiming different types of benefits, health data) which can be searched for by inputting the neighbourhood name or post code, then on the next page selecting the type of statistics you are interested in. |
| Office of National Statistics | Offical Labour Market Statistics | Gives data to number of people claiming a variety of different benefits, which can be sorted by local area. |
| Department for Work and Pensions | Statistics at DWP | Contains a range of statistics on employment programmes, household income, benefits, pensions and other subjects they are responsible for. Some of this data is broken down to ward level on benefit claims. |
| Department for Work and Pensions | DWP Tabulation Tool | Tool to produce bespoke tabulations about benefits or schemes of interest broken down by local area or a particular characteristic of person. |
| Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallum University | 'Hitting the Poorest Placed Hardest: The Local and Regional Impact of Welfare Reform.' By Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill (2013). | The link goes to a spreadsheet showing the full dataset used in the report, showing the local impact which welfare reforms are having across the local authority areas across Britain. The figures cover the number of households or individuals affected, and the total financial loss to each local area. |
| BBC News | Economy Tracker: Unemployment | Shows levels of unemployment by area of the UK. |
| Trade Union Congress | Find your Regional TUC Office | Your Regional TUC may be a good source of information about local cuts and any existing anti-cuts campaigns in your local area. Your regional TUC office can be found here. |
| Higher Education Statistics Agency | Statistics - Students and qualifiers at UK HE institutions | Contains a range of statistics about those being accepted into higher education institutions. This data is broken down in place by factors such as gender, subject, country of origin, ethnicity etc. |
| Voluntary and community groups | 'Vouluntary Sector Cuts' | Resource mapping intelligence about regional voluntary groups experiencing reductions in public sector funding. |
| The Poverty Site | Statistics for Poverty and Social Exclusion | Contains a huge amount of data on poverty and social exclusion within the UK. Some of the data can be searched by local authority area and region. |
| UK Crime Stats | UK Crime Stats | Allows you to search by post code or area name for maps of crimes occuring in that area, numbers of crimes by type of crime and contains charts displaying results about how many crimes of each type are occuring in the area. Heat map style results also allow you to clearly see if the area has a high or low crime rate compared to the UK average. |
| Police.UK | Crime Maps and Data | Allows you to search by post code or local area name to show maps of crimes in that area and details of numbers of crimes by type of crime in that area. |
| Gov.UK | Crime Statistics | Brings together all documents relating to recent crime statistics by type of crime. |
| Department of Health, The National Archives | Performance Data and Statistics | Shows statistics and data for the performance of the NHS in several areas, for example it provides data on appointment cancellations, waiting times at hospitals etc. |
| Health and Social Care Information Centre | Find Data and Statistics | Allows searches for data on health and social care services within the UK. |
| Scottish Government | 'Equality and Evidence Finder' | Equality data collected by the Scottish Government and its Agencies across a wide range of policy areas. The Evidence Finder allows you to find this evidence by equality characteristic and/or by policy area. |
| Scope | 'Demos: Mapping Cuts to Disability Services, How is your Council Coping.' | Maps any cuts to disability services by local authority. |
Other Sources
To search for types of data not listed here and to be able to search generally for a whole range of UK statistics to find information on how the public spending cuts are affecting your local area, please visit the Office for National Statistics. Here you can find local data on various areas of interest. Examples of what types of data you can find and more direct links to where to find this type of data are below:
- Labour Market Statistics - Using the links on the left of the page you can search for statistics on a range of employment related interests, such as employment figures by type of employment, numbers unemployed, redundencies, those at the Job Centre or on benefits and jobs available, as examples. This data can be searched by local authority area and is usually broken down by various characteristics of person.
- Children, Education and Skills Statistics - Statistics on education and training in both children's education and higher education, including class sizes, numbers of students etc. broken down by local authority.
- Crime in England and Wales - Allows searches for crime rates and statistics on crime by region and type of crime.
- Housing Market Statistics - Data on the UK housing market to search by area.