‘Bittersweet’ research from the Centre for Social Justice
It’s not every day a new piece of research comes out which genuinely grabs your attention and makes you want to read it cover to cover. So it was bittersweet when the Centre for Social Justice released its new report just before Christmas which did just that. It was bitter in that tells a sorry story about the state of our society – a society that has sadly been in decline since the financial crisis of 2008. One where the divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is in danger of returning to that last seen in the Victorian era. It was sweet in that it has been a long time since a piece of research chimed with me so much. One of those documents you read through nodding all the way, as it produces bucket loads of evidence for things you’ve thought to be true but often struggled to prove. Indeed, the Centre for Social Justice have produced a document which articulates and illuminates a few of the points I was trying to make in the blog I published on this site back in March 2023 – “Time to move past just keeping the lights on”. It does it much better than I ever could of course, and it goes much further and wider in assessing what’s happening in the UK. I’d thoroughly recommend reading it: Two Nations (centreforsocialjustice.org.uk).
As something to whet the appetite, these were just a small handful of points raised in the paper:
40% of the most deprived report having a mental health condition compared to just 13% of the general population.
Only 8% of victims of crime are confident they would receive justice as a result of reporting a crime.
The number of people economically inactive because of long-term sickness has risen to over 2.6 million.
The UK is an outlier among its counterparts for family fragility. 23% of UK families are headed by a single parent, compared with an EU average of 13%.
Only just over half (57%) of the most disadvantaged pupils leave primary school with the expected standards in reading, writing, and maths.
In the most left behind communities, work is typically poor quality, insecure, and offers little progression. The welfare system is topping up the wages of over two million people. Increasingly, claiming welfare benefits is a better option financially than taking on more work. For example, a single person on benefits in Sutton Coldfield would have 34% of their income to spend after non-avoidable costs, including housing. If the same person starts part-time work on the minimum wage, after costs including tax and housing, they have only 32% of their income to spend.
These are stark figures. Statistics can sometimes be easy to skim over but pausing and reflecting on what these actually mean in practice is both essential and sobering.
Rightly we should be very concerned by the impact on individuals. The problems people face can be crippling and often one issue can interlink to become a cocktail of problems. What mustn’t be missed here, and what might well win over minds as well as hearts, is that the long-term success of our country depends on addressing these issues. The UK’s economy, our communities and the stability of our society itself rely on it.
Often when people hear these sort of statistics they’ll question how such things can be possible in the 6th biggest economy in the world. They make an excellent point. Though we must be careful not to just see this as something which money alone can solve. It is much more complicated than that.
While we are working at a much smaller scale at Clear Consultancy Services, the same core elements we often need to make a project a success might help the bigger picture. This includes closely involving the people impacted by change in the design of solutions, better collaboration between relevant organisations, genuine innovation and, in some cases, a cultural shift. I dare say the same might be required for the country at large.
The Centre for Social Justice will be reporting in the Spring on the solutions it sees to the problems raised and we, and others, will await those with interest.