Deprivation: policy context

Tackling deprivation has been a government priority in Scotland over a long period. In 1988 the Scottish Office launched its New Life for Urban Scotland Initiative which created regeneration partnerships in four peripheral housing estates, Castlemilk in Glasgow, Ferguslie Park in Paisley, Wester Hailes in Edinburgh and Whitfield in Dundee. After devolution in 1999, the Scottish Executive committed itself to tackling poverty and disadvantage through its Social Justice Strategy. The Social Justice Strategy was supported nationally by the Social Justice milestones and locally by the establishment of 'Social Inclusion Partnerships (SIPs)' throughout Scotland (replacing what were formerly Priority Partnership Areas (PPAs) and Regeneration Partnerships (RPs) ). A key feature of these initiatives was their focus on regeneration and social inclusion in areas of high deprivation.

More recently, in July 2004, the Scottish Executive announced six Closing the Opportunity Gap (CtOG) objectives. These aim to: improve employment chances for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups; improve the confidence and skills of the most disadvantaged children and young people; reduce the vulnerability of low income families to financial exclusion and multiple debts; regenerate the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods; increase the rate of improvement of the health status of people living in the most deprived communities; and improve access to high quality services for the most disadvantaged groups and individuals in rural communities. The six objectives are underpinned by ten targets, which include targets for reductions in worklessness, improvements in educational attainment of the lowest performing pupils and reductions in health inequalities in cancer and heart disease mortality via increased rates of improvement in the most deprived communities.

Related to this, the second of the Scottish Executive's 2005-2008 spending review targets is to "reduce health inequalities by increasing the rate of improvement across a range of indicators for the most deprived communities by 15%, by 2008". The health inequalities pages of this site provide more details on these targets.

As well as launching the CtOG objectives, the Executive announced the establishment of a new Community Regeneration Fund (CRF) to bring improvements to Scotland's most deprived areas and help individuals and families escape poverty. The principle purpose of the CRF is to achieve the Closing the Opportunity Gap objective of "regenerating the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods so that people living there can take advantage of job opportunities and improve their quality of life". Regeneration Outcome Agreements (ROAs) produced by Community Planning Partnerships are required to provide evidence to show that the most disadvantaged areas and groups will be targeted and must provide strong evidence for using their Community Regeneration Fund (CRF) for areas not in the 15% most deprived data zones (identified by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)).

All of the above illustrate the importance of deprivation within past and current government policy. It is also worth noting the existence of the Arbuthnott formula which was developed to guide health service resource allocation in Scotland and uses indicators of deprivation.