Urban deprivation and government expenditure: Where does spending go?

This chapter outlines how public spending flows into local and small areas can be measured and the patterns of spending which are revealed, particularly between deprived and other areas. Policing is essentially a 'public good' and some of its effects are diffused across the whole population of an area. The relationship of spending with ward deprivation level varies substantially and systematically between different programme areas. Estimating public spending totals at small area level is feasible, although difficult; it becomes easier over time as modern computerised databases with consistent postcoding/geocoding spread. Successive policy responses have focused on areas through the Inner Cities and Urban Programmes and more recently City Challenge and Single Regeneration Budgets. Higher education provides relatively good data from both Local Education Authority student grant databases and Higher Education Funding Council student data, and similar data are available for Further Education.