Case studies: The impact of poverty data gaps

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We spoke to many researchers in the course of our work, and present six case studies. These are six real users, several of whom asked to be anonymised (it is sometimes difficult for researchers to complain openly about problems with data). 

• Many use cases, only two routes

  The people who need data on UK poverty are not just academic researchers; they include frontline groups, think tanks, local authorities and many other users. This diverse range of users told us about different needs and interests, including but not limited to:   

  • Training and non-technical resources that help on-the-ground, practical interventions  
  • Basic descriptive information on the scale and characteristics of poverty, to inform service provision or support advocacy 
  • Causative analysis around factors linked to poverty, to inform strategy or support advocacy 
  • Policy evaluation including modelling of the impact of new policies, to inform policy development and influence government decision-making. 

  However, while these needs and use cases vary, there are only two current routes for users to access data, designed for the general public or for multi-year research:  

  1. Public tools like Stat-Xplore or FOI requests which (understandably) only provide aggregated data, and (less understandably) often produce poorly documented data of variable quality, with inconsistent support when user needs are not met 

  2. Research access schemes designed for academic researchers with excellent knowledge of the data, dedicated funding and long timescales, which produce high-quality data but can take months or years. 

  This limited set of options and non-academic/academic binary causes a range of problems for those users who fall somewhere in between, which we see in these case studies. 

• The impact on anti-poverty work

  When data is slow and burdensome to get, or variables are unavailable, it ultimately stops the sector from helping people in poverty. In these case studies, we hear from researchers who tell us about the problems they face, and the impact on their work:  

  • Speed of access is a consistent problem: we heard from a policy researcher who cannot produce analysis quickly enough to inform debate, and from a charity consultant who says charities often have to act without crucial information about their target communities 
  • Burdensome licensing processes - we hear from researchers having to re-apply for the same data again multiple times, or the same data being restricted in one part of the UK and not another with no clear justification; this can make important research impossible to complete 
  • Data quality and granularity - we hear from researchers who cannot get the data they need from public routes and FOI, which means less research can be done, of lower quality; ultimately this may mean that policymakers have an inaccurate picture.  
  • Inclusivity of the data ecosystem - we hear from a charity consultant who reflects on the challenges that their clients face in accessing data in even basic ways, and how frontline charities need training and resources that meet them where they are to make use of data at all.

The case studies we present show the impact this has on work being done to counter poverty.