Social exclusion and local services

Abstract

This chapter considers the use and adequacy of local services. It is largely based on data from the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) Survey and draws on previous analysis of the 1990 Breadline Britain Survey undertaken by Bramley (1997) in order to assess trends over time. This is set in the context of wider research on the distributional impact of local services (Bramley and Le Grand, 1992; Bramley and Smart, 1993; Hills, 1996; Bramley, 1996; Sefton, 1997; Bramley et al, 1998) and on how adequate and accessible people regard these services as being (Duffy, 2000; Bailey and Hastings, 2002). The main aim of the chapter is to investigate whether local services are an effective mechanism of redistribution in favour of the ‘poor’, or whether these services are used more by the better off. In doing so, the chapter examines both use of and attitudes towards local services. It addresses the following specific questions: What is the distributional profile of local public services in terms of individual households, class, income and poverty in 1999? Are certain services used more by the poor or by the better off? Which local services are regarded as essential by most households? Are the ‘poor’ more or less likely to regard particular services as essential? Has the distributional profile of service usage changed since 1990? What factors might account for these changes? Is this service exclusion for the ‘poor’ becoming greater or diminishing? How does the distributional profile of usage for local private services compare with that for local public services?