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Devolution’s impact on low-income people and places

On 13 January 2010, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a paper which looks at the impact devolution has had for low-income people and places to date.

The paper reflects on policy developments in four specific areas which can make a significant difference to people affected by poverty: housing and homelessness; employment; neighbourhood regeneration; and long-term care for the elderly.

It notes that ten years of devolution have coincided mostly with falling levels of poverty and improving employment rates across the UK, particularly in Scotland and the North East of England.

Other key points stress that:

• Social housing improvements have been achieved, but low-income households paying a mortgage or renting privately are more likely to live below housing quality standards.
• Regeneration has delivered various benefits to low-income neighbourhoods, especially where policy has been relatively stable (England and Wales). Least progress has been seen in Northern Ireland, due partly to its ‘stop-go’ experience of devolution.
• The Welsh approach to social care enables costs for older people on lower incomes to be reduced and contrasts with Scotland’s more costly universal approach.

The paper concludes that better evaluation evidence is needed to identify the benefits of devolved policies for low-income people and places as well as attempts to encourage better sharing of knowledge between devolved administrations and the UK government.

Devolution’s impact on low-income people and places (PDF)