Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, 03 Oct 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Official Report 190KB pdf

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Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

Item 4 relates to a paper that has been circulated to members on the Scottish index of multiple deprivation. I remind members that this is on the agenda because it was raised at the away day in August and we confirmed it as part of our work programme at the meeting on 5 September. It is one of those issues that we put down for a minor discussion as opposed to a major inquiry. The paper indicates that a significant amount of work has already been done in this area, and the significant suggestion arising from the paper is that we write to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment.

Does any member wish to raise a point about the Scottish index of multiple deprivation?

I whole-heartedly agree with the recommendation. I note that the previous Finance Committee reached a conclusion in relation to the index, and I doubt that we would come to a different conclusion, but it might be useful to write and find out what the new Administration has to say.

I will do that. It is useful to have the paper in advance of our inquiry into rural housing.

That is an entirely appropriate way to proceed, but there is an issue. Some rural areas in which there are large concentrations of deprivation have benefited from this. Whatever we are seeking should not take that away but should provide an additional mechanism to support areas in which there is dispersed deprivation, rather than areas—such as Douglas and Rigside, in my constituency—where there is concentrated deprivation that has an impact on education, housing and all the other indicators. Whatever we are looking for should be in addition to what is already in place.

I agree with what Karen Gillon says, but the problem that the paper identifies—I commend it as a very good paper—goes down almost to the individual level. In Argyllshire, only 14 per cent of income-deprived individuals live in the social inclusion partnership areas. That is shocking and must be addressed. If it has to be addressed from the level of the individual up, that will be worth doing.

If we write to the Government, I wonder whether we might ask it to comment on the Countryside Agency's work on this in England. We are long on analysis of the problem but short on solutions, as always. There is an opportunity for the committee to provide a definitive solution. As far as I can see, judging by what is in the paper, the furthest that the thinking has got thus far is in the Countryside Agency's work in England. We should build on that if we are to provide something worth while for Scotland on this enormous problem.

I suggest that, as a small strand in our rural housing inquiry, we consider the housing issues in respect of the SIMD and the reality of what we take evidence on. We can have a couple of paragraphs in our report about how the housing issues relate to SIMD.

I want to pick up the point that Karen Gillon made, which was well made, although to a large degree I also agree with what Jamie Hepburn and John Scott have said and I agree with the recommendation. It would be unfortunate if, in trying to advance the cause of those who are deprived but spatially dispersed, we did not support the need to help those who live in areas of concentrated deprivation.

One of the great difficulties that Scotland has yet to overcome—people in public policy have been trying to do so for 50 years—is that there are areas of heavily concentrated deprivation where the problems are profoundly changed and intensified because of the concentrated nature of the deprivation. Schools perform totally differently in many such communities and require different solutions to their problems, and different health services are required. Therefore, although I agree that we need to support spatially dispersed deprived people, we should not do that at the expense of helping those who have needs in areas of more concentrated deprivation.

I suggest a slightly different approach. Who could disagree with what is being said? However, by helping individuals who are deprived, we would help everybody, whether they were dispersed or congregated in a certain area. Therefore, I think that it is wrong to focus on area deprivation; it is much better and more appropriate to focus on individual deprivation, as that will help all the individuals who are deprived.

This very good committee paper makes the point that, in Argyll, five SIPs cover just 14 per cent of all income-deprived individuals and not the other 86 per cent. Could the Scottish Parliament information centre work out the same statistic for all 32 councils and put that in a paper for us? That would be very helpful.

That would be useful information, and it would help the committee if that were possible. We will pass on that request.

We often try to find a single solution to address deprivation throughout the country. However, although Scotland is quite small, it is highly diverse. It may be that we need to consider different responses to deprivation in urban areas with a dense population, such as exist in Glasgow, and deprivation in rural areas with a highly dispersed population. If SPICe is going to do some research on the matter, it would be useful to know of other countries that have a similar problem. I would like to know whether any other country has two or more methods of working on deprivation. It would be useful to know how other countries respond to deprivation in a rural environment with a dispersed population and deprivation in an urban environment with a more dense population. Is anybody else doing anything on that? Eventually, we will have to get beyond the idea that we can have one system that works for everybody in the country.

That is useful. We have those questions for SPICe and a focus for our letter to the cabinet secretary.