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 |
| Centre for Labour and Social Studies | CLaSS WebsiteLink opens in a new window | Provides news and reports relating to inequality in the UK. |
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. |
| Gingerbread | WebsiteLink opens in a new window | Provides news, statistics and links to blogs about issues affecting single parents, including welfare reform. |
| Left Links Directory | ATOS news articlesLink opens in a new window | A collection of news articles about changes to the Work Capability Assessment implemented by ATOS. |
Blogs that cover the impact of spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| The Guardian | BlogLink opens in a new window | Public sector news blog offering comment on cuts across the UK. |
| Diary of a Benefit Scrounger | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog that shares and analyses information about cuts to welfare provisions, particularly in the context of illness and disability. |
| Birmingham Against the Cuts | BlogLink opens in a new window | Provides comment, news and information about cuts in Birmingham. Provides an insight into the use of benefit sanctionsLink opens in a new window by government bodies and alternatives to austerity. |
| Benefit Scrounging Scum | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog about disablism and the cuts. |
| Where's the Benefit? | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog about issues surrounding cuts to benefits for disabled people. |
| A Girl Called Jack | BlogLink opens in a new window | Campaigner and blogger who writes about welfare reform issues. |
| War on Welfare | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog supporting the WOW campaign against the recent welfare reforms. |
| Labour Representation Committee | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog highlighting the progress of LRC’s stop welfare reform campaign. |
| Disabled People Against Cuts | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog documenting the impact of austerity cuts and recent changes to welfare reform, and how disabled people have been affected. |
| Disability Now | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog about disablism with posts about welfare reform. |
| Disability Voices | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog providing news and analysis of public sector cuts affecting disabled people. |
| Rage Against the Coalition | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog about austerity. |
| Arbitrary Constant | BlogLink opens in a new window | Blog which posts about cuts to benefits for disabled people. |
Campaigns against spending cuts
| Organisation(s) | Resource Name | Resource Description |
| 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. |
| Boycott Workfare | Campaign WebsiteLink opens in a new window | UK-wide campaign to end forced unpaid work for people who receive welfare payments. |
| Macmillan Cancer Support | ‘Welfare Reform Campaign’Link opens in a new window | Campaign for a fairer welfare system for those with terminal illnesses such as cancer. |
| Black triangle campaign | Campaign WebsiteLink opens in a new window | 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 WebsiteLink opens in a new window | 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 WebsiteLink opens in a new window | Survey campaign working to collate evidence from voluntary and community organisations across London about the impact of the recession on this sector. |
| Who Benefits? | Campaign WebsiteLink opens in a new window | Campaign aiming to give a voice to people supported by benefits. |
| Disabled People Against Cuts | Campaign BlogLink opens in a new window | Organisation that campaigns against cuts to services for disabled people. |
| The Hardest Hit | Campaign WebsiteLink opens in a new window | 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 BlogLink opens in a new window | Organisation that aims to give a voice to disabled people in various campaigns against welfare reform. |
| Action for ESOL | Campaign BlogLink opens in a new window | Campaign fighting against cuts to funding for English Language learning for speakers of other languages. |
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: Wales by Suzanne Fitzpatrick et al (2015)Link opens in a new window |
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 hereLink opens in a new window. |
| Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) | Open Data CommunitiesLink opens in a new window | 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 | Offical Labour Market StatisticsLink opens in a new window | 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 DWPLink opens in a new window | 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. |
| BBC News | Economy Tracker: UnemploymentLink opens in a new window | Shows levels of unemployment by area of the UK. |
| Trade Union Congress | Find your Regional TUC OfficeLink opens in a new window | 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. |
| UK Crime Stats | UK Crime StatsLink opens in a new window | 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 DataLink opens in a new window | 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 StatisticsLink opens in a new window | Brings together all documents relating to recent crime statistics by type of crime. |
| Department of Health, The National Archives | Performance Data and StatisticsLink opens in a new window | 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. |
| Scottish Government | 'Equality and Evidence Finder'Link opens in a new window | 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. |
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 StatisticsLink opens in a new window - 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 StatisticsLink opens in a new window - 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 WalesLink opens in a new window - Allows searches for crime rates and statistics on crime by region and type of crime.
- Housing Market StatisticsLink opens in a new window - Data on the UK housing market to search by area.