Trends in housing and neighbourhoods

This programme aims to:

• provide an overall picture on housing and neighbourhoods issues of concern across and within the UK;
• analyse government performance on key related policy targets; and
• identify emerging trends and concerns which may not be in the policy spotlight. It will also help to inform JRF's wider research agenda.

The work will seek to explore issues in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland individually and to identify issues for the UK as a whole, including similarities and differences across the four nations.

The intention is that the analysis provided will both inform the public, media and policy/practice communities on key national trends and issues needing more policy attention and in the longer term assist local practitioners to review trends in their area.

Key issues

This three year programme involves:

• Identifying key housing and neighbourhoods statistics across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland;
• From this, developing a set of indicators to monitor trends across and within the different jurisdictions of the UK taking account of the varying contexts and data available;
• Developing an indicator database, drawing on the original data sources to inform a website which will provide key findings from the programme;
• Producing a series of related outputs providing analysis of the picture for the UK as a whole and for individual countries, both in web form and through written reports and summaries.

Overview

This 3 year programme began in April 2008. Key activities undertaken in the first year have included:

• meeting key stakeholders from different parts of the UK to discuss the aims of the programme;
• mapping key data sources from the 4 nations of the UK of relevance to this area;
• identifying a preliminary set of housing and neighbourhood indicators;
• holding consultation meetings in each of the 4 nations for feedback on the proposed indicators.

Key activities in 2009 will include:

• refining the proposed indicators, collating and analysing the relevant data to provide an overall commentary;
• a baseline report on the UK picture;
• developing a website which will be used to disseminate the findings from this work.

Key activities in 2010-11 will include:

• country reports for the four nations of the UK;
• a further UK report drawing together an overall commentary on housing and neighbourhoods;
• dissemination activities, including events;
• development of the related website.

The JRF has also developed a monitor of poverty and social exclusion trends. For related reports and data analysis see www.poverty.org.uk