Debates about whether poverty exists in the UK and how to define and measure it have raged for decades. A multitude of data is available that helps quantify poverty, but that wealth of data can make finding the most useful and best supporting
evidence difficult. By the end of this one-day course participants will have developed an understanding of what key poverty datasets tell us, how best to access data sources and how to use this knowledge to support the work that they do.
Who is this course for?
This course is for organisations and individuals who wish to strengthen the case for their work by presenting accurate an relevant data about poverty to funders, supporters and policy makers. It is suitable for third, public and private sector organisations. It is also suitable for researchers who wish to develop a baseline understanding of debates about how poverty is measured and commonly used datasets.
Course content
The course will cover the following:
- Concepts of poverty – relative poverty versus absolute poverty
- Common measures of poverty used in the UK
- Recent trends in poverty in the UK
- Why is understanding poverty data and how we measure poverty important to your organisation?
- What does government data tell us about poverty levels in the UK?
- o Sourcing national poverty data
- o Effective use of national poverty data
- o Risk of poverty among different groups of the population
- o Limitations of national data.
- Understanding poverty at a regional and local level
- o Sourcing local poverty data
- o Effective use of local poverty data.
Facilitator: The course will be run by Greater Manchester Poverty Action director and co-founder Graham Whitham.
Graham is a leading expert on poverty in the UK and has a wealth of policy, research and campaigning experience from his time working as a senior policy advisor to Save the Children and Oxfam. Graham has been heavily involved in debates around how to measure poverty and has used poverty data to influence government policy at a Westminster and devolved government level. He has also represented the UK as a non-governmental expert on poverty internationally, been a keynote speaker at a number of academic conferences and represented both Oxfam and Save the Children in national, regional and local broadcast media.