Deprivation and Fragility

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) 2012 identifies the most deprived areas across Scotland. It is based on 31 indicators in the six individual domains of Current Income, Employment, Housing, Health, Education, Skills and Training and Geographic Access to Services.
 
A Briefing Note analysing the SIMD results for Highland, together with the Scottish Government’s Deprivation Report for Highland and a note giving a simple overview of changes in Highland can be viewed by clicking the links below:

• SIMD12 Briefing Note (pdf 525kb)
• Scottish Government deprivation report for highland (pdf 362kb)
• change in areas in Highland 2006 to 2012 (pdf 46kb)

The domain scores and ranks for each datazone in Highland, together with additional data for some domains, are available in an Excel spreadheet by clicking on:

• Highland SIMD 2012 data (xls 458kb)

Maps showing the most deprived datazones in Highland are available below:

• SIMD12 15% most deprived in Scotland map (pdf 1.5mb)
• SIMD12 15% most deprived in Highland map (pdf 1.3mb)
• SIMD12 15% most deprived in Scotland 2006 2009 2012 map (pdf 1.4mb)

Maps showing the rank in Highland for the overall Index and the rank in Scotland for the overall Index and six of the domains are available below:

• SIMD12 multiple index rank in Highland map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 multiple index rank in Scotland map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 income domain map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 employment domain map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 health domain map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 education domain map (pdf 1.3mb)
• SIMD12 crime domain map (pdf 1.4mb)
• SIMD12 access domain map (pdf 1.4mb)

Documents relating to SIMD 2009 are available under Related Information at the right of this page.  For more information on SIMD 2012, visit http://simd.scotland.gov.uk/publication-2012/. 

Fragile Areas

The Highland Council has identified many parts of its area as “fragile”, indicating that they may be in danger of long term decline due to their remoteness, an ageing population, lack of economic opportunity and access to essential services. Seven key indicators have been identified:

• Population decline between 1991-2001
• Population decline in 0-15 age group, between 1991-2001
• Population density, 2001
• Long term Unemployment Rate, July 2003
• Income Support Claimant Rate, August 2000
• Population outwith 10 minute drive time of 5 key services:
  • Post Office
  • Primary school
  • Food shop
  • Doctor’s surgery
  • Petrol filling station
• Population outwith 1.5 hours drive time of Inverness (main employment and service centre)

These time periods are used in the 'Fragile Area Map' file listed below.

A paper outlining the methodolgy and maps showing Fragile Area indicators can be viewed by clicking the links below (all are pdf files):

• Fragile Areas Paper (101kb)
• Fragile Area Map 1999 (473kb)
• Fragile Area Map 2003 (465kb)

Supersparsity

Highland Council delivers services across an area with the lowest population density of all UK local authorities. Overall, Highland has only 8 people per square kilometre, falling to 2 per square kilometre in Sutherland, compared with 66 people per square kilometre in Scotland as a whole. Front line services are decentralised for effective delivery, and we believe additional costs of some £12m per annum are incurred in delivering services to the 26% of the population who live in "supersparse" areas. This is not recognised in GAE funding. Many of our remote communities are in danger of decline as the population ages and young people move to major centres such as Inverness in search of further education, or more secure and better paid employment.

A study was undertaken in order to provide robust estimates of the cost associated with mainland supersparsity. The report from the study can be viewed by clicking the link below (pdf file):

• The Cost of Supersparsity (5,373kb)

Accessibility