PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
UK Community Renewal Fund (12 March 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how the measure of household income used for the index of economic resilience for the UK Community Renewal Fund differs from the Income Deprivation Domain used in the Indices of Multiple Deprivation.

Asked by:
Bob Blackman (Conservative)

To ensure the UK Community Renewal Fund funding reaches the most in need, we have identified 100 priority places based on an index of economic resilience across Great Britain which measures productivity, household income, unemployment, skills and population density.

We are committed to transparency and a methodological note explaining how the 100 priority places were determined has been published: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus/uk-community-renewal-fund-prioritisation-of-places-methodology-note.

The Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) does not represent a ‘one size fits all’ solution to measuring economic need - not all of the variables it considers are relevant to the particular interventions we want to support through the UK Community Renewal Fund, and some of the variables it does not consider, such as productivity, are central to the policy goals of the Fund.

Answered by:
Eddie Hughes (Conservative)
18 March 2021