Anti-Poverty Needs Assessment (APNA) 2014
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V 1.9 Final Anti-Poverty Needs Assessment (APNA) 2014 Evidence Base Anti- Poverty Strategy 2014-2017 July 2014 1 CONTENTS Section Page No. Section 1: Purpose of the APNA 3 Section 2: Deprivation 4 Section 3: Labour Market & Worklessness 5 Section 4: Welfare Reform & Housing 10 Section 5: Financial Exclusion & Debt 15 Section 6: Health 18 Section 7: Children & Young People 20 Section 8: Stronger Families 26 Section 9: Food Poverty 27 Section 10: Fuel Poverty 29 Section 11: Areas of Focus/Priorities for 2014/15 31 2 Section 1: Purpose of the Anti-Poverty Needs Assessment 1.1 The ‘Anti-Poverty’ debate has gathered momentum in 2013-14 and into early 2014- 15. This Needs Assessment will outline some of the key information about the drivers of poverty in Doncaster, identify areas where Doncaster significantly deviated from national comparators and some of the impacts of poverty. The findings of this needs assessment should inform the composition of an ‘Anti-Poverty’ strategy and help to inform service delivery decisions across the partnership. 1.2 The inter-relationships across many parts of people’s lives mean that poverty is a complex problem; there are no easy fixes. Although poverty has been a long standing issue across many towns and places across the country, there does seem to be an issue of people who are in work but with low incomes who are struggling to pay for food, fuel or other items we may take for granted. Although this paper may help to make sense of parts of the poverty problem across Doncaster, inevitably there will be other data, research and opinion that will be needed to support the work of the partnership. 3 Section 2: Deprivation 2.1 Deprivation has been measured using a number of different methods, but the latest set of informatics is derived from the Census 2011. The data shows a similar pattern to previous data, with areas within the main urban core showing higher levels of deprivation, along with some of the settlements that surround the core - many of which are former mining areas. 2.2 Figure 1 below shows the areas of Doncaster and their levels of deprivation, based on the 2011 Census. The deprivation measure uses employment, education, health and housing measures to give an overall ‘score’ for how deprived an area is. It is clear there are some clusters across Doncaster, but also some communities where there are wide variations of deprivation in close proximity. This highlights the inequalities across the borough. Two particular areas of Doncaster have been in the most deprived 1% nationally in previous assessments: Denaby Main in the west; and Balby Bridge in the central area. Moorends Askern Carcroft Adwick Le Stainforth Street Intake Mexborough New Rossington Denaby Main Balby Town Centre & Balby Bridge Figure 1: Map to show deprivation across Doncaster, 20111 1 Census 2011 deprivation measure composed of ; 1. Employment: any member of a household not a full-time student is either unemployed or long-term sick. 2. Education: no person in the household has at least L2 education, and no person aged 16-18 is a full-time student. 3. Health and disability: any person in the household has general health ‘bad or very bad’ or has a long term health problem. 4. Housing: Household's accommodation is either overcrowded, with an occupancy rating -1 or less, or is in a shared dwelling, or has no central heating. 4 Section 3: Labour Market & Worklessness 3.1 Doncaster is the second largest economy in the Sheffield City Region. Key transformational projects are planned to increase the number of jobs and unlock development land. However, there are a number of inter-related issues that need to be tackled to develop a more balanced and resilient economy. The Local Economic Assessment identifies2 Doncaster’s key Labour Market challenges: Employment Rate: Increasing but the gap with regional averages is only narrowing slowly. Doncaster’s females are less likely to work than others in the region. Wage Rates: Weekly earnings are over 10% lower than the UK average. Youth Unemployment: Youth unemployment is falling faster than the overall unemployment rate, but a remains a challenge Working Age Population: Since 2001, the working age population has grown in line with national averages, but decreases in the 5-9 & 10-14 age ranges may adversely affect the number of workers available locally in the medium term, along with an increasingly ageing population. 3.2 The employment rate in Doncaster has lagged behind our comparator benchmarks over a number of years, but these gaps have been wider in 2012 and 2013 than in other years. The 2013 figure did show a bounce back with an increase in the employment rate but the gap remains; if Doncaster was to equal the Yorkshire and Humber rate there would be 6000 more people employed in Doncaster. 74 72 70 68 66 % of Working Age Population 64 62 Q1 2008 Q4 2012 Q2 2008 Q3 2008 Q4 2008 Q1 2009 Q2 2009 Q3 2009 Q4 2009 Q1 2010 Q2 2010 Q3 2010 Q4 2010 Q1 2011 Q2 2011 Q3 2011 Q4 2011 Q1 2012 Q2 2012 Q3 2012 Q1 2013 Q2 2013 Q3 2013 Doncaster England Yorkshire & Humber CIPFA neighbours Sheffield City Region (SCR) Figure 2: Employment Rate 2008-20133 2http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/sections/business/economyandenterprise/Local_Economic_Assessment_for_Doncaster.a spx 3 Annual Population Survey (2008-2013), Nomis 5 Unemployment4 3.3 Unemployed people form a small percentage of the population; the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has developed a statistical model that provides estimates of total unemployed for unitary authorities and local authority districts. The unemployment rate measures people who are unemployed as a percentage of the economically active population. Unemployment is higher in Doncaster than the average rates for Yorkshire & Humber, CIPFA5 neighbours, Sheffield City Region and England. A reduction to the regional levels would approximate to 1250 less people unemployed in Doncaster. Unemployment rate - Q3 2013 12 10.4 10 9.3 9.0 9.2 8 7.6 6 4 % of working age population 2 0 Doncaster CIPFA Sheffield City Yorkshire & England Neighbours Region (SCR) Humber Figure 3: Model Based Employment Rate Q3 20136 Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)7 3.4 The JSA claimant count is not itself a measure of unemployment but is strongly correlated with unemployment. It is commonly used as a proxy measure for joblessness. The number of working age JSA claimants in Doncaster continues to reduce. After a significant rise following the economic downturn in 2008/9 to a peak in February 2012 of 11,000 people, or 5.8% of the working age population, it has reduced to 8,000 in April 2014, approximately 4.2% of the working age population. 3.5 These reductions are positive for Doncaster but the gap between Doncaster and the comparator benchmarks has not closed with other areas seeing similar reductions (shown in figure 4). Doncaster would need to reduce the number of JSA claimants by 1115 to equal regional rates of JSA. 4 Refers to people without a job who were available to start work in the two weeks following their jobcentre interview and who had either looked for work in the four weeks prior to interview or were waiting to start a job they had already obtained. 5 CIPFA Neighbours: Rotherham, Barnsley, Wigan, Wakefield, Dudley, Tameside, Bolton, Sunderland, Dudley, Walsall, Oldham, Gateshead, Wirral, Sefton, Rochdale, Tameside, Stockport 6 Annual Population Survey, Unemployment Rates, NOMIS 7 JSA claimant count records the number of people claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and National Insurance credits. People claiming JSA must declare that they are out of work, capable of, available for and actively seeking work during the week in which the claim is made 6 JSA rate (proportion of working age population) 2005-2014 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 Jul 2005 Jul 2006 Jul 2007 Jul 2008 Jul 2009 Jul 2010 Jul 2011 Jul 2012 Jul 2013 Jul Jan 2005 Jan 2006 Jan 2007 Jan 2008 Jan 2009 Jan 2010 Jan 2011 Jan 2012 Jan 2013 Jan 2014 Jan Oct 2005 Oct 2006 Oct 2007 Oct 2008 Oct 2009 Oct 2010 Oct 2011 Oct 2012 Oct 2013 Oct Apr 2005 Apr 2006 Apr 2007 Apr 2008 Apr 2009 Apr 2010 Apr 2011 Apr 2012 Apr 2013 Apr 2014 Apr Doncaster England Yorks and Humber CIPFA Neighbours Sheffield City Region (SCR) Figure 4: JSA Rate (Proportion of Working age population), 2005-20148 3.6 The number and rate of 18-24 year olds in Doncaster who are JSA claimants is also reducing. Claimant figures for the 18-24 year old age group show a reduction of 32% between April 2013 and April 2014. This reduction is better than the England, Yorkshire & Humber, Sheffield City Region and our CIPFA comparator authorities’ average reductions. However this age group still accounts for 27.5% of working age claimants in Doncaster and is a significant challenge to the local economy and to local services. Although similar to the regional average, there are nearly 400 young people aged 18-24 that have been claiming JSA for over 12 months. There are more young people who have just started claiming JSA (Under 6 months) in Doncaster than regional and national average, with 5.5% of the population in this category for Doncaster compared to 3.6 and 3.0% for the regional and national figure respectively. Doncaster JSA claimant rate by age group 12 10 8 6 4 Proportionof population 2 0 Aged 16-24 Aged 25-49 Aged 50-64 Figure 5: JSA Claimant Count by Age Group 8 Claimant Count, NOMIS 7 Gender 3.10 Females in Doncaster are far less likely to work: 59.6% of females of working age are in employment which is significantly less than the Y&H average (a 5.6 percentage points gap) and the lowest in South Yorkshire (60.4% Rotherham; 67.6% Barnsley; 64.4% Sheffield)(2013).