Inequality | LocalGov

Addressing regional inequalities

18/04/2024

Andrew Borland, Chief Innovation Officer at the Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC), University of Liverpool discusses the importance of levelling up for growth.

Children’s services in North face £25bn care burden

17/04/2024

Children’s services in the North face a £25bn care burden due to ‘deeply rooted social inequalities’ and the ‘North-South divide’, a new report has revealed.

Dashboard compares healthy life expectancy across councils

10/04/2024

A data tool to compare healthy life expectancy across all councils in England has been launched by The Health Foundation.

Levelling up plagued by ‘astonishing delays’

15/03/2024

The Government’s levelling up agenda has been characterised by ‘astonishing delays’ and blind optimism, according to Parliament’s spending watchdog.

Less than 20% of levelling up projects completed

04/03/2024

Fewer than a fifth of projects backed by the Government's £3.6bn Towns Fund were on track to be completed by the end of February, FOI requests have revealed.

Northern households pay £250 more council tax

12/02/2024

Households in the North are paying on average £250 a year more than they should for council tax due to ' outdated council tax bands’, campaigners say.

Ombudsman calls for Royal Commission for social housing

23/01/2024

The Housing Ombudsman has called for the establishment of a Royal Commission to deliver a long-term plan for social housing that tackles social injustices.

‘Bad health blackspots’ hold back growth

19/01/2024

Stark health inequalities are holding back economic growth, new research has found.

A million lives ‘cut short’ by inequality

08/01/2024

A million people in England had their lives cut short because of health inequality between 2011 and 2019, research has found.

‘Astounding’ regional inequality in cancer deaths

12/12/2023

The risk of dying from the cancers with the highest mortality rates varies ‘massively’ across England, according to a study published in The Lancet Oncology.

New index exposes deprivation disparities

12/12/2023

A ‘novel methodology’ has uncovered stark inequalities between different ethnic groups in small residential areas.

Council chiefs call for workforce plan after ‘unfair care’ warning

20/10/2023

Council leaders have repeated their call for a dedicated social care workforce plan in response to a CQC warning that councils are struggling to meet demand.

Level up seaside towns or lose power, Conservatives told

19/09/2023

The Conservative Government must level up England’s struggling coastal communities or risk losing 113 seaside seats to Labour, a conservative think tank warns.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh equal pay claims warning

07/09/2023

Councils face a fresh wave of potential equal pay claims after a legal ruling exposed problems with the application of the national pay scheme.

Levelling up for the next generation

30/08/2023

John Rayson, Atkins’ managing director for the North, asks if the aspirations of the next generation align with decision-makers in the North.

Government failing to protect disabled people

17/08/2023

The UK and Welsh governments are failing to protect disabled people from discrimination and the situation is worsening due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Barnsley launches new initiative to boost employment

04/07/2023

Barnsley Council and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority have launched a new initiative to support thousands of residents into employment.

MPs warn of 'lost decade' for disadvantaged pupils

07/06/2023

The educational gap between disadvantaged pupils and others could take a decade to return to pre-pandemic levels, MPs warn.

Oxford and Swindon top ‘good growth’ index

26/05/2023

Oxford and Swindon have come out top in a ranking of cities according to their residents’ economic wellbeing, with Bristol and Exeter following closely behind.

Levelling up will fail without long-term funding

26/05/2023

The Government’s levelling up policy will fail without long-term funding for councils, MPs have warned.

North misses out on £21m of levelling up funding

23/05/2023

Local authority areas in the North have missed out on £21m of funding from the Government’s flagship levelling up fund, a new study has revealed.

London boroughs agree first infrastructure framework

17/05/2023

All 33 local authorities across London have agreed an infrastructure framework on a cross-party, pan-London basis for the first time.

‘Red Wall’ areas score poorly on social fabric index

02/05/2023

Local communities in areas won by the Conservatives from Labour in 2019 have continued to face decline despite the levelling up agenda, think tank finds.

Many council areas face ‘nature access gap’, study reveals

02/05/2023

In a third of local authority areas more than 70% of households don’t have access to nature within a 15-minute walk, new research finds.

Report shows stark variations in levelling up funding

25/04/2023

Competitive bidding has led to a £0.5bn gap in levelling up cash between the best and least funded combined authorities, according to new analysis.

Traffic collisions more likely to affect poorer neighbourhoods

18/04/2023

People living in London’s more deprived areas are twice as likely to be killed or seriously injured in road collisions, new research reveals.

Londoners face maternity care ‘postcode lottery’

14/04/2023

Mayor Sadiq Khan is being urged to help drive up maternity care standards after councillors claimed there is a ‘postcode lottery’ in the delivery of services.

Digitisation must not lead to ‘two-tier society’, auditor says

09/03/2023

Spending on internet infrastructure must be balanced with measures to prevent creating a two-tier society when it comes to services, Welsh government says.

Women’s rough sleeping often ‘hidden’, council chiefs say

08/03/2023

Council leaders in London have called for action to address ‘systemic inequalities’ creating barriers to women accessing support and housing.

‘Hidden’ unemployment rates reveal deepening divides

31/01/2023

Nine out of 10 of the UK’s cities and towns with the highest hidden unemployment rates are in the North, new study reveals.

Gove urged to address ‘inequalities’ affecting GRT community

27/01/2023

Lords committee has asked the Government for more information on how it plans to address inequalities faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) people.

County leaders call for devolution to be ‘turbocharged’

21/11/2022

County council leaders have called on the Government to ‘turbocharge’ devolution to help them level up by attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI).

Public health budget slashed by a quarter, charity reveals

26/10/2022

A charity has warned against cuts to public health as an analysis reveals that austerity under Conservative governments has hit the poorest the hardest.

Investment needed to close ‘digital divide’

20/10/2022

David Hennell, business development director, at National Broadband, discusses why the PM must prioritise digital investment as part of levelling up plans.

Government announces £50m to research health inequalities

11/10/2022

Thirteen local authorities are set to benefit from a £50m investment aimed at boosting research into tackling health inequalities.

Levelling up fails North East, study reveals

07/10/2022

The Government’s flagship policy of levelling up and closing the North/South divide has failed to benefit the North East, a new study has found.

Rich to benefit most from energy price cap

13/09/2022

Higher-income households are set to benefit the most from the Government’s new cap on energy prices, think tank finds.

Index reveals high levels of inequality between UK cities

22/08/2022

The impact of the predicted recession is likely to be felt more in some cities than others, a new study of the economic resilience of UK cities has revealed.

Educational inequalities result in ‘substantial differences’ in life chances, think tank says

17/08/2022

Educational inequalities have ‘barely changed’ over the last two decades and are likely to increase following the COVID-19 pandemic, financial experts warn.

Birmingham faces fresh equal pay claims and strikes

09/08/2022

The leader of Birmingham CC has urged trade unions to engage in talks over fresh equal pay disputes – rather than ballot staff over potential strike action.

North-South gap remains wide despite levelling-up rhetoric

09/08/2022

The income gap between the North and the South has remained consistently wide since the early 2000s despite all the talk of levelling-up, think tank says.

‘Parallel pandemic’ of mental ill health cost North £2bn

25/07/2022

The number of mental ill health cases in the North of England were much higher during the pandemic than in any other part of the country and cost £2bn.

Councils warn public health investment needed to deliver women’s health strategy

20/07/2022

Council leaders have warned that past cuts to public health funding could undermine government efforts to tackle major inequalities within women’s health.

Boost cities to level up UK, think tank says

27/06/2022

Levelling up needs billions of pounds worth of investment in cities – a level of investment not currently being considered by policy makers, think tanks say.

Care home owners paid 13 times more than carers

15/06/2022

The pay of executives at equity firms that own care homes is 13 times higher than the wages of the care home workers they employ, new research has revealed.

Inquiry hears of bullying and racism in social care sector

10/06/2022

Lower-paid health and social care workers have experienced bullying, racism and harassment at work, an inquiry by Britain’s equality regulator has heard.

Over 300,000 people living with undiagnosed dementia

17/05/2022

Improving early diagnosis for the hundreds of thousands of people with dementia could lead to over £3bn in savings through lower carer costs, report says.

Levelling up means making ‘sad Londoners happier’

11/05/2022

The Government’s levelling up agenda should focus more on affluent local authority areas in London that have low levels of wellbeing, think tank says.

Women in England's poorest areas die younger than nearly all other OECD countries

19/04/2022

Women living in the poorest parts of England have a lower life expectancy than women in living in almost any OECD country, new research has revealed.

Cost of living crisis risks leaving levelling up ‘dead on arrival’

07/04/2022

The Government’s levelling up agenda could be undermined by a deepening North-South divide exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, a think tank has warned.

Extra £4.7bn for schools unlikely to cover cost pressures

04/03/2022

Government ‘has little assurance’ the £4.7bn committed to schools in the 2021 spending review will cover the cost pressures that schools are facing, PAC warns.

New taskforce aims to ‘level up’ maternity care

23/02/2022

Government launches taskforce aimed at tackling disparities in maternity care experienced by women from ethnic minority groups and those in deprived areas.

Smoking 'single largest driver' of health inequalities

09/02/2022

A third of smoking households in England are living in poverty with rates highest in the North, a new study has revealed.

Leads for reviews into health disparities confirmed

07/02/2022

The leads for two significant independent reviews to tackle health disparities have been confirmed.

Rural health services need ‘levelling up’, MPs say

01/02/2022

Rural local authorities spend a disproportionately higher share of their budget on providing social care than their urban counterparts, MPs warn.

Hearing loss more prevalent in the North, study reveals

25/01/2022

Northerners over 50 have a 13.5% higher prevalence of hearing loss than Southerners in England, University of Manchester researchers have revealed.

Mind the gap between levelling up ‘rhetoric and reality’, think tank warns

17/01/2022

Central Government policies have undermined the ‘levelling up’ agenda and left the UK more regionally divided than ever, a new study says.

‘Levelling up’ agenda undermined by pandemic response

14/12/2021

Incomes in London and the south-east have increased six times faster than in ‘red wall’ regions since the general election, new research reveals.

Cities should be central to ‘levelling up’ agenda, think tank says

18/11/2021

The Government should focus on investing in cities outside of London rather than spreading investment too thinly across small towns, think tank recommends.

Childhood obesity ‘one of the greatest public health challenges’

17/11/2021

Local authority leaders urge Government to do more to tackle childhood obesity as the NHS warns of a ‘significant increase’ in obesity rates among children.

Councils to explore innovative ways of tackling health inequalities

20/10/2021

Five councils are to take part in a new programme which will see them introduce innovative ways of improving health and tackling health inequalities.

Public health grant cuts run counter to levelling up, say experts

05/10/2021

Real terms cuts to local public health work against levelling up and the Government must boost funding after years of underinvestment, say two leading health organisations.

Decade of improvement in life expectancy undone by pandemic, data reveals

24/09/2021

The pandemic has undone a decade of improvement in life expectancy, a health think tank has warned.

Disadvantaged children ‘locked out’ of early years opportunities

19/08/2021

Research suggests Government’s policy of 30 hours of funded childcare for working parents has widened the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.

Pandemic hits disadvantaged pupils hardest, study reveals

07/06/2021

Disadvantaged pupils have experienced ‘greater learning losses’ than their more affluent peers, new research has found.

New 'Singapore-style' Office will tackle leading health risks

29/03/2021

A new 'Singapore style' Office for Health Promotion will systematically tackle the ‘top preventable risk factors causing death and ill health in the UK’, the Government announced today.

Budget 2021: Chancellor confirms £4.8bn ‘levelling up fund’

03/03/2021

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the first round of the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund will be available to local areas to help tackle regional inequalities.

Sport England unlocks additional £50m for grassroots sport

26/01/2021

Sport England has announced it will invest £50m to help grassroots sport and physical activity recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pushing for real reform

21/01/2021

The pandemic was a game changer for the central/local government relationship, says Joanne Roney, who has started her two-year stint as president of Solace.

Professor Whitty warns of health inequalities across country

18/12/2020

Deprived areas have higher levels of ill-health and disease, a report has warned today.

Commission calls for action to reduce mental health inequalities

12/11/2020

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted existing inequalities in mental health, a new report has warned.

Baroness Lawrence calls for urgent action to tackle structural racial inequalities

27/10/2020

Structural racism meant Black, Asian and minority ethnic people were disproportionately affected by the COVID pandemic, a new review has warned.

COVID 'magnifying' health and care inequalities

16/10/2020

The coronavirus pandemic has ‘exacerbated’ existing problems in social care and magnified health inequalities, a report has warned today.

Tackling inequality key for post-COVID recovery, say experts

30/09/2020

Safeguarding people's living standards, re-evaluating the role of key workers in society, and reducing inequality are ‘crucial’ for the UK’s economic recovery, researchers say.

Racism raises the risk from COVID-19 for minorities

17/06/2020

Racism has raised the risk of people from black and ethnic minority communities developing COVID-19 and dying from the disease, says an official report.

Contact tracing app could leave ‘many behind’ charity warns

03/06/2020

The government's contact tracing app could exacerbate existing health inequalities, a charity has warned today.

London has highest poverty rates, report shows

21/04/2020

London has greater levels of poverty than any other region in the UK, new figures have revealed today.

Government urged to 'think big' to tackle regional inequalities

02/03/2020

A comprehensive review of economic decline and social division has called for a ‘large-scale, comprehensive, long-term and devolved’ plan of action to deliver change.

Minimum ‘basic’ income trial reports mixed results

26/02/2020

A pilot scheme assessing the impact of a minimum ‘basic’ income on poverty and inequality improves well-being but financial insecurities remain.

Think tank calls for ‘Devolution Parliament’

21/02/2020

A think tank has called for a ‘Devolution Parliament’ as it releases research showing that England has the worst regional inequalities in the developed world.

Charity warns of ‘deep’ health inequalities

20/02/2020

A charity has warned of ‘unacceptable’ health inequalities in how long and how healthy babies born today in different parts of England can expect to live.

Commission calls for action on ‘unequal risk of mental ill health’

21/01/2020

Some groups of people have a much higher risk of poor mental health than others, the Commission for Equality in Mental Health has found.

New figures reveal exercise inequalities

06/12/2019

Children from less affluent families are less likely to participate in physical activity than their wealthier peers.

Regional inequality in UK is worst than comparable countries, says think tank

27/11/2019

Regional inequalities in the UK are ‘far worse than in any comparable country’, a think tank has warned today.

London councils ‘fail’ to challenge inequality, campaigners say

13/11/2019

Many London councils are failing to challenge poverty and inequality, according to campaigners.

Think tank calls for ‘devolution evolution’

29/10/2019

A greater devolution of powers and funding would help tackle Britain’s geographical inequalities, a report has said today.

UK marked by ‘extreme’ inequalities, study shows

08/10/2019

A new study from University College London has warned that the UK is characterised by ‘extreme’ inequalities both between and within cities and regions.

MPs warn of ‘worrying’ sexual health inequalities

03/06/2019

Members of Parliament have called for a new national strategy to ensure high quality sexual health services for all.

Devolution necessary for ‘rebalancing’ economy, report says

30/05/2019

Power must be devolved to a ‘comprehensive framework’ of mayoral and combined authorities and rural counties in order to rebalance the economy, report says.

Council chiefs call for ‘power and control’ over funding after Brexit

27/02/2019

Leaving the EU risks exacerbating regional inequalities, but it also provides an opportunity to rethink the Government’s approach to regional funding.

Experts warn of ‘economically irresponsible’ health inequalities

13/12/2018

Senior public health experts have called for action to halt growing inequality in provision of services in the north of England compared to the South.

Over four million older people do not have access to care services

13/12/2018

A long-term fix to pay for adult social care has been 'kicked into the long grass', local government leaders have warned.

Whitehall 'neglecting' smaller cities and towns, report warns

03/10/2018

The Government’s focus on major cities ‘neglects’ the contribution that smaller cities, towns and communities can make to economic growth, according to study.

UK plagued by ‘stubborn’ health inequalities

11/09/2018

A report looking at the state of the nation’s health has revealed that the rich live nearly 20 more years than the poor on average.

Poorest households not benefiting from ‘wealth boom’, think tank says

03/09/2018

Many of Britain’s poorest households have not benefited from the country’s post-financial crisis ‘wealth boom’, think tank finds.

Labour warn of ‘shameful’ inequality in education system

21/08/2018

Students in the poorest areas in England are nine times more likely than those in the wealthiest areas to be in a school rated as inadequate, according to an analysis of Ofsted data.

Data reveals 'significant' ethnic pay gap in the Greater London Authority Group

05/03/2018

New data has revealed there is a 'significant' pay difference between white people and those from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background working for the the Greater London Authority (GLA) Group.

Older women suffer ‘shocking’ inequalities

07/12/2017

Older people suffer from ‘shocking’ inequalities with women in particular losing out, an older persons charity has warned.

UK most ‘geographically unbalanced’ economy in Europe, warns think tank

06/09/2017

The UK is the most ‘geographically unbalanced’ economy in Europe, think tank says after council chiefs warn of stalled devolution agenda.

Coastal communities ‘worst performing areas’, according to new study

05/09/2017

Britain’s coastal communities are among the worst ranked parts of the country across a range of economic and social indicators, new report finds.

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Banning urban pesticide use

RSPB and PAN are working on a letter from local councillors calling on the Government to introduce a national ban on urban pesticide use. Find out more below.
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