1. Deprivation
The updated version of the English Indices of Deprivation 20071, reveals the following:
• Barnet is more deprived in relation to other local authority areas than it was in 2004 and
is now close to the top third of most deprived authorities in the country
• Barnet now has six Local Super Output Areas within the 10% most deprived nationally.
Within London, Barnet ranks below the middle point, close to the bottom third of least
deprived boroughs
• Barnet’s rank on most types of deprivation has risen with the exception of the
‘education, skills and training’ domain which shows an improvement
• Burnt Oak and Colindale remain the most deprived wards in Barnet by a significant
margin, as was the case in 2004
There is a linear relationship between poor health and deprivation which is compounded by age
as summarized in Graph 2.
Source: Office for National Statistics data
Graph 2: The relationship between death rates in people aged under 75 years and
deprivation levels at an electoral ward level.
1300
Standardised all-cause mortality in people
1200
aged under 75 years per 100,000
1100
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
10 15 20 25 30 35
Index of Multiple Deprivation (2007)
Interrogating this data further at Super Output Areas (SOA) reveals a patchwork of deprivation
which correlates to the location of social housing stock in the borough. Though there are
1
Published by the Department for Communities and Local Government
2. difficulties in comparing data between different years because of the changes in methodology
and calculation, but this is a national phenomenon, not exclusive to Barnet.
Index of Multiple Deprivation
The Index of Multiple Deprivation uses a number of data sources with key measurements from
the Census; educational data; road traffic accidents; modelling to estimate ‘difficulty of access
to owner-occupation; measures of the proportion of households for whom a decision has been
made on applications for homeless provision assistance; and health data including GP
prescribing data, hospital episode statistics, and average distance from a GP surgery.
The calculations from 2004 to 2007 reveals that Barnet has become more deprived’.
Map 2: Relative deprivation levels in Barnet at census SOA area level
Source: Office for National Statistics data
High Barnet
Underhill
Oakley East
Barnet
Brunswick
Park
Totteridge
Hale
Edgware
Mill Hill Coppetts
West Woodhouse
Finchley
Burnt
Oak Finchley
East
Church
Finchley
End
Colindale
Hendon
Garden Index of Multiple
West Suburb Deprivation (2007)
Hendon
Very high
Golders
High
Childs
Green
Hill Moderate
Low
Very low
The new figures show Barnet to be more deprived than in 2004 in relation to other boroughs in both
London and England. This worsening is the largest such change nationally. Of 354 English local
authorities, Barnet now ranks the 128th most deprived (65 more so than in 2004) and 21 st out of the 33
London boroughs, three places worse than in 2004 (1 = most deprived). Barnet is thus more deprived
than most local authorities in England but less deprived than most London ones.
Table 1 shows the relative changes that occurred in the main measures of deprivation in Barnet
between 2004 and 2007.
3. Table 1 : Average ranks in different deprivations measures at SOA level
Average rank of Barnet’s
superoutput areas Change:
IMD measure (out of 32,482 nationally) 2004 to 2007
NOTE 1 = most deprived
2004 2007*
Barriers to housing and services (wider) [including the
proportion of households for whom a decision has been made on 4,916 1,012 3,904
applications for homeless provision assistance]
Living environment (outdoors) [incl. air quality, road traffic
7,963 7,449 514
collisions]
Crime [burglary, violence, theft, criminal damage] 15,075 12,959 2,116
Income [recipients of means-tested benefits] 16,127 15,021 1,106
Living environment (indoors) [incl. social & private housing in
16,566 16,319 247
poor condition, houses without central heating]
Employment [Jobseekers Allowance and Incapacity Benefits
20,461 18,741 1,720
claimants, New Deal Scheme participants]
Barriers to housing and services (geographical) [incl. distance
19,217 18,787 430
from services, e.g. GP surgery, post office]
Health and disability [incl. hospital statistics.] 23,767 23,193 573
Education (skills) [proportion of working-age adults with no or
26,684 26,703 + 19
low qualifications]
Education (children and young people) [incl. Key Stage scores
23,419 31,350 + 7,931
and staying-on rates]
Average rank (out of 32,284) 18,755 14,610 4,145
Where the ranking for 2007 has become smaller this reflects a worsening of the position, i.e. a move towards higher
deprivation.
The data in Table 6 suggest that, over the last three years, deprivation in Barnet has increased
especially, albeit not to a great extent, in terms of more applications for homeless provision, an increase
in crime and fewer people being in employment. On the other hand, educational achievements have
improved by a relatively large amount.
These changes, which affect a number of SOA areas rather than the whole borough, are unlikely to be
especially significant in terms of the need for future health and social care services unless there are
further changes in the same direction.