The Scottish Government

Overview

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation identifies small area concentrations of multiple deprivation across all of Scotland in a fair way. It allows effective targeting of policies and funding where the aim is to wholly or partly tackle or take account of area concentrations of multiple deprivation.

The first Index (SIMD 2004) was published in June 2004 and was based on 31 indicators in the six individual domains of Current Income, Employment, Housing, Health, Education, Skills and Training and Geographic Access to Services and Telecommunications.

The SIMD was updated for 2006 on 17 October 2006. The SIMD 2006 contains 37 indicators in seven domains: Current Income, Employment, Health, Education Skills and Training, Geographic Access to Services (including public transport travel times for the first time), Housing and a new Crime Domain.

The SIMD is presented at data zone level, enabling small pockets of deprivation to be identified. The data zones, which have a median population size of 769, are ranked from most deprived (1) to least deprived (6,505) on the overall SIMD and on each of the individual domains. The result is a comprehensive picture of relative area deprivation across Scotland.

Change between SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006

Because the data zones boundaries have remained constant it is now possible, for the first time, to analyse relative change over time between SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006. Because the SIMD uses ranks, it is important to note that changes in rank are relative and do not imply absolute change in a data zone. To assess absolute change between areas and over time, individual indicators, or the SIMD employment domain should be used.

Guidance on comparing individual indicators is available in the SIMD 2006 technical report and guidance on how to use the SIMD and assess change over time is available in the SIMD 2006 guidance leaflet. The technical report also includes detailed information on each indicator and any changes made to indicators and the overall methodology for the SIMD 2006.

Key Results

Analysis of the SIMD 2006 and change over time is provided in the SIMD 2006 General Report and the online Statistical Compendium. However, some key results are:

• Glasgow City, North Lanarkshire, and South Lanarkshire have seen relatively large decreases in their share of data zones in the 15% most deprived areas in Scotland between the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006.
• Fife, Aberdeen City, Highland and Inverclyde have seen relatively large increases in their share of data zones in the 15% most deprived areas in Scotland between the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006.
• The 15% most deprived data zones in SIMD 2006 contain 36 per cent (257,041) of Scotland's income deprived population and 33 per cent (134,347) of Scotland's employment deprived working age population.
• Local authority areas with the largest national shares of the 15% most deprived in Scotland are Glasgow City (34 per cent), North Lanarkshire (nine per cent), City of Edinburgh (seven per cent) and South Lanarkshire (six per cent).
• Local authority areas with the largest local share of the 15% most deprived in SIMD 2006 are Glasgow City (48 per cent), Dundee City (30 per cent), West Dunbartonshire (28 per cent), Clackmannanshire (23 per cent) and North Lanarkshire (20 per cent).
• Eilean Siar, Moray, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands do not have any data zones in the SIMD 2006 15% most deprived. This does not mean there is no deprivation in these areas rather that it is not concentrated in small areas.