Higher cuts for councils tackling poverty

Originally posted @ 1:50 pm, Wed 12th Jan 2011

Walking home yesterday, I was talking to a council officer when from nowhere a group of perhaps a hundred teenagers turned up, walking down the street with banners and placards protesting against the withdrawal of Education Maintenance Allowance.

Police were with them even though they seemed a gentle enough crows but I think I heard they were protesting about the massive tax waive granted to Vodaphone (which I think would pay for EMA 14 times over so) perhaps the Police were a bit nervous.

Meanwhile I've done a quick bit of data analysis myself and produced a graph that shows that for most purpose authorities, the harsher the deprivation with the communities these councils serve, the more grant from the Conservative-led government they lose.

And that's before taking into account the extra grants allocated to help those most in need.

(There are a few missing cos I don't have the IMD data for the newer most purpose local authorities.)

The graph shows we are not all in this together.