The purpose of our first blog is to provide some background information to our research and to introduce our four case study areas with a brief description of each.
The aim of our research is to investigate relationships between access to social welfare (legal) advice, and the connectedness, equality, and well-being of four case-study communities. Social welfare (legal) advice is advice about people’s rights and entitlements in areas that affect their daily lives such as benefits, debt, housing, social care, and immigration. All areas where the recent “cost of living crisis” has exacerbated people’s need for advice.
We know that communities can be defined in many ways, and at the outset we have taken a geographical approach in this context, focusing on local authority, town council or London Borough areas: Anglesey (North Wales), Rochdale (Greater Manchester), Hackney (London borough), and Dartmouth (South Hams). There will be many different communities within these geographical areas, based on smaller locations (like villages and council wards, or even streets), but also anchored in characteristics such as faith, ethnicity, nationality, age, and disability. We took the larger geographical areas as a starting point because we wanted to first understand the perspectives of those providing advice to communities, which includes formal, well-established organisations whose services are commissioned by and/or funded by the relevant councils, as well as smaller, voluntary organisations that also tend to be networked at a council area level. Later in our research we will be working closely with community residents in particular wards and villages.
We chose to work with communities on Anglesey, and in Rochdale, Hackney and Dartmouth, because these areas’ characteristics are very different on some measures, and their community advice needs are likely to be high, but also quite diverse. We now turn to providing some background information for each area, some of which is drawn from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Welsh Government, local council data, and Onward’s UK Social Fabric Index.
Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
Anglesey can be classified as a rural area with a population of approx. 70,000. People here are comparatively older and overwhelmingly White, with many people moving to the area upon retirement. On some measures, Anglesey scores comparatively poorly for physical infrastructure, economic value, and civil institutions, but on the whole the population fairs more favourably on well-being measures such as feelings of having a worthwhile life, happiness, life satisfaction, comparative levels of anxiety, positive social norms and relationships. Approx. 67% of the population of Anglesey speak Welsh, but rates vary in different areas. For example, over 80% of the population of Llangefni (home to the principal Council offices) speak Welsh, whereas the figure is approx. 45% for the port of Holyhead (which falls within the top 10% of the most deprived areas in Wales). Anglesey has more recently seen a decline in Welsh speakers, this is likely due to a range of social changes, such as an influx of inward migration and outflux of young people seeking better employment prospects. We are particularly interested in having a case-study based in Wales because, whilst state funded legal aid for advice services is not devolved to Wales, Welsh Government is active in justice policy development and the delivery of social welfare advice. The Welsh Government approach has been to establish and support distinct advice networks.
Dartmouth
Dartmouth also has a comparatively older and White British Community with a population of approx. 5,000. Dartmouth is an attractive coastal location for the wealthy, including second homeowners, with expensive waterfront properties. However, there is a tale of two towns (perhaps two communities), of visible affluence and hidden poverty. For example, whilst approx. 24% of children in the South Hams Borough live in poverty, the rate for the Dartmouth Townstal ward (population approx. 2,600) (on which we focus) is approx. 35%. The Townstal estate is some distance from the lower town (where various support services are based, and which can therefore be difficult to access). Most public services, particularly health services, are no longer local, and travel to Totnes, Newton Abbot, Torbay, Plymouth, or Exeter is required. Local people are increasingly unable to afford buying a house with earnings not keeping pace with price rises. In terms of deprivation, the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) (a population measure) that includes Townstal has a ranking of 9,296 on the Index of Multiple Deprivation, compared to 29,224 for the waterfront area (where 1 is most deprived and 32,844 is least deprived). In terms of other services/organisations, there are local charities trying to address need, and in particular the TQ6 Community Partnership of local people, grassroots organisations and statutory services working together to tackle local deprivation and community concerns to improve life in Dartmouth, Townstal and the surrounding villages.
London Borough of Hackney
Hackney is a diverse inner-city borough located in East London, just outside the boundaries of the old City of London. Its location and the home to industry’s reliant on cheap and plentiful labour (such as the clothing trade) has made it an attractive place to settle for newly arrived communities. In the 2011 Census, just under 40% of the respondents in Hackney were born outside the UK. As a result, it has experienced some social churn as the new communities replace the more established communities who move on to the leafier outer London Boroughs. It is a densely populated area characterised by blocks of low-rise flats and houses in multiple occupation and has a population of 281,740. 15.2% of households in Hackney were defined as overcrowded in the 2011 Census. Nearly two thirds (64%) of the resident population self-describe as either Asian, Black, Mixed Race or Other heritage with the older parts of the population more likely to self-describe as White. Despite the proximity to the City of London, Hackney has some of the highest rates of deprivation in comparison to other London Boroughs, and in comparison to the whole UK. Of the London Boroughs, Hackney has the highest proportion of LSOAs within the most deprived 10% nationally (11% of its LSOAs). The levels of child poverty are particularly high as all housing is very expensive so taking housing costs into account, 48% of children in Hackney live in households facing poverty. The area has experienced successive waves of regeneration, most recently on the back of the high land costs in London. High levels of poverty sit beside the evidence of swift and extensive gentrification, making the area somewhat of a social and economic crossroads, with inevitable impacts on people’s sense of community.
Rochdale
Rochdale is a town and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester and has a population of 223,700; 82% of the population identifying as White, with the next largest group being Asian, at 15%. Rochdale town centre and parts of the neighbouring estates are among the most deprived places in England. Among the Greater Manchester authorities, Rochdale has the highest proportion of LSOAs within the most deprived 10% nationally. Across Rochdale, and after considering housing costs, 36% of children live in poverty, a figure rising to as high as 50% in some wards. On social fabric measures, Rochdale scores the lowest out of all our case-study areas. Rochdale Borough Council has recently conducted a review of social welfare rights advice (social welfare (legal) advice in our project terminology) locally, and is developing and implementing a new model of advice services provision. An Economic Support Network was set up in 2020, facilitated by Action Together Rochdale, the third sector development agency for Rochdale, to facilitate collaborative work between community, voluntary, faith and social enterprise sector organisations, to help support people on issues surrounding money, benefits, financial hardship and support needs, and/or skills relating to volunteering and employment.
Next in the series… the next posts in our series explore some of our preliminary findings from across North Wales and Anglesey…