The Scottish Government income and poverty statistics team have recently published “Relative poverty across Scottish local authorities”. This presents official estimates for the proportion of households in relative poverty at local authority level across Scotland. This is the first time that figures of this type have been published.
However, in an unusual development, the statistics team have since issued a statement promising in depth work to explore concerns from some users. They are concerned that the results do not strongly correlate with some of the other sources currently used as indicators for poverty at local authority level such as the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) Income Domain. Until this work is complete, the new figures will be classified as “data being developed” rather than “Official Statistics”.