Background and Methodology
Background
In August 2003 the Scottish Government published a report from the Scottish Centre for Research on Social Justice (SCRSJ) called 'Measuring Deprivation in Scotland : Developing a Long-Term Strategy'. The final report was based on a wide ranging consultation process and built on the Scottish Indices of Deprivation 2003 (SID 2003). Through a steering group, consultation on the interim report and public meetings the views of central and local government, community groups, academics and the wider general public were sought. The Scottish Executive response, in which the SG accepted all of its recommendations, was published alongside the final report.
In delivering the SIMD 2004, the Government is implemented the recommendation to produce an area-based measure of deprivation, building on the SID 2003.
The SIMD 2006 was published on 17 October 2006 as part of the Scottish Government's commitment to produce an SIMD every two years. The SIMD 2006 further incorporates the long term strategy's recommendations, in particular by including a crime domain.
Methodology
Any decisions on changes to the methodology used to create the SIMD, and the indicators included in it, have been made in conjunction with data providers and the ScotStat Measuring Deprivation Advisory Group (MDAG). The MDAG is made up from users and analysts in local authority areas and other bodies (e.g. voluntary sector), experts in particular issues (e.g. access) and analysts within the Scottish Government. The MDAG provides the Government with advice on measuring deprivation as it works to implement the long term strategy for measuring deprivation. Advice covers: the needs of users; development priorities; methodological options; quality of outputs; dissemination and guidance on the use of outputs. Minutes and papers from all meetings with the MDAG are published on the Scottish Government's website at:
Both the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006 are heavily based on the methodology used in SID 2003 , which was developed by the Social Disadvantage Research Centre at the University of Oxford. However there have been significant steps forward in both the updating of data, the inclusion of new data sets and the geographic unit of analysis.
Since the SIMD 2004, the SIMD has made use of the data zone geography which enables users to compare relative deprivation at a small area level across Scotland (see Geography) and, since the publication of the SIMD 2006, relative change over time. This level of geography helps to identify 'pockets' of deprivation that may have been previously missed in analyses based on postcode sectors or wards. It also allows the greater focusing of area based policy initiatives and service delivery strategies. In contrast to previous indices, the Scottish Government has taken the responsibility for sourcing the data, constructing the domains and quality assuring the product. This illustrates the SG's commitment to improving the in-house knowledge base and to working with experts in this field. This should ensure that future indices will build on methodological advancements and make full use of all available, appropriate data sources.
The SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006 are not directly comparable due to changes in methodology, improvements to existing data sources and the new crime domain and public transportation sub domain. The SIMD 2006 Guidance Leaflet contains advice on how to use the SIMD and also how to analyse change over time between the Indices. For some domains there have been unavoidable changes due to lack of data availability. This and other changes should be taken in to account when interpreting the results. Methodological changes are described fully in the SIMD 2006 Technical Report and include the removal of the shrinkage technique and change from direct to indirect age-sex standardisation of some of the health and education indicators. These methodology changes are the result of the evaluation of the SIMD 2004 methodology conducted by the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics (RCB), University of Glasgow in 2005. The report can be found at www.scotland.gov.uk/simd2004evaluation and a statistical publication notice, containing the Scottish Government's official response can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2005/11/statspubnoticevalsimd2004
The SIMD 2006, which includes a new crime domain and new public transport sub-domain combines 37 indicators in 7 domains: Current Income; Employment; Health; Education, Skills and Training; Housing; Geographic Access and Crime. Due to the lack of new data to replace 2001 Census data, the 2006 Housing domain, contains exactly the same data as the SIMD 2004. The Scottish Government continues to look to develop data for inclusion in the housing domain for the next update to the SIMD.
The SIMD 2004 combined 31 indicators across 6 domains of Current Income; Employment; Health; Education, Skills and Training; Housing; and Geographic Access and Telecommunications. The SIMD 2004 Summary Technical Report which provides a clear overview of the methodology used to develop the SIMD 2004 and presents some Local Authority level summary results is available at www.scotland.gov.uk/SIMD2004Report. A more detailed technical report, describing the methodology used to create the indicators, domains and overall index, was published at a later date on 25th October 2004.