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Posted on 2 May 2013
 

The Impoverishment of the UK report paints a bleak picture of deteriorating living conditions and opportunities for a significant and growing proportion of the population. 

It will be profiled in a special Tonight programme, Breadline Britain, broadcast on ITV tonight Thursday 28 March at 7.30 pm.

The report is part of the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) study, which uses a way of measuring poverty devised by Joanna Mack, Learning and Teaching producer at the OU, and Stewart Lansley, senior project officer at the OU. 

This PSE approach – now adopted by the UK Government and by a growing number of rich and developing countries – identifies people falling below a publicly-determined minimum standard of living. 

It was pioneered in 1983 and repeated in studies in 1990, 1999, 2002/03 and 2012. The PSE project thus provides detailed and robust information about trends over 30 years. 

Joanna Mack was the principal investigator on the 1983 and 1990 research studies and she is one of the lead investigators for the current research. 

The OU also developed The Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK website,  which is an integral part of the overall project and which provides a major resource on poverty and social exclusion, used extensively.

Key findings of the PSE report include:

• 33% of the UK population suffers from multiple deprivation. In 1983 the figure was 14 % 
• Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions
• Roughly 14 million cannot afford one or more essential household goods
• Almost 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population

Joanna Mack said: “Levels of deprivation today are worse in a number of vital areas – from basic housing to key social activities – than at any point in the past thirty years. 

"These trends are a deeply shocking indictment of 30 years of economic and social policy and reflect a rapid growth in inequality. This has meant that, though the economy has doubled in size during this period, those at the bottom have been increasingly left behind.”

Professor David Gordon of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research in Bristol, who is head of the project, said: “The results present a remarkably bleak portrait of life in the UK today and the shrinking opportunities faced by the bottom third of UK society.  

"About one third of people in the UK suffer significant difficulties and about a quarter have an unacceptably low standard of living’ said ‘ Moreover this bleak situation will get worse as benefit levels fall in real term, real wages continue to decline and living standards are further squeezed.” 

You can download The Impoverishment of the UK report here.

Posted 28 March 2013

The research is investigating whether the brains of people with OCD function differently to those without OCD.

Preliminary findings suggest some systematic and interesting differences between brain activity in people with OCD, and non-OCD controls, even in a relaxed state. However, to obtain a more detailed picture researchers need to find more participants with OCD.

They are looking for people between 18 and 60 years of age, who have been diagnosed with OCD and have no learning disabilities.

If you decide to participate, they will need four hours of your time. The timing of these sessions can be flexible and scheduled according to your convenience.

During this time, your brain activity will be recorded using a safe, non-invasive and painless technique known as Quantitative Electroencephalography, or QEEG. You will also be interviewed and asked to fill in a questionnaire.

The study generally takes place at the OU in Milton Keynes or in Camden in London. Travel costs will be reimbursed. In some cases researchers will be able to come to your town or a town near you to perform the scans and interviews.

By participating in this study, you will be contributing to scientific advancements in OCD research. Additionally, you will gain interesting insights about how your brain may have been affected by OCD.

You can get more information from the QEEG and Brain Research Lab project page. If you wish to take part, or have any enquiries, please contact Loes Koorenhof by calling  01908 659 472, or email loes.koorenhof@open.ac.uk

BBC's Mastermind is looking for contestants now.

For more information, or to book a place on one of the nationwide auditions, visit the Mastermind website and click on Audition Information; or call 0161 836 0315; or email mastermind@bbc.co.uk

Posted 25 March 2013

George Osborne is unusually reluctant to show how a smaller Budget is financing tax cuts, because new evidence suggests that won’t promote economic recovery, argues Alan Shipman.

When the economy was growing, Chancellors measured their success by how many hidden tax rises they could smuggle into a Budget, and how many days it took the personal-finance experts to unearth them. Times have changed. So when George Osborne delivered his Budget today, it is the hidden tax reductions that his critics are looking for.

Location: Hotel Russell, London 

Date: 25 April 2013

You can now book on our third event in the Business Perspectives series, which focuses on Leadership. The event will explore leadership in the current climate, how best to lead for growth in challenging times and manage a team through cutbacks, loss and stress. We’ll discuss how leaders can inspire a sense of direction and moving forwards in difficult contexts, drawing on the insights and experience of our speakers and participants.

The event will be led by Jean Hartley, newly appointed Professor in Public Leadership at The Open University Business School, who together with leading practising managers will explore leadership in both the public and private  sector.

We’re delighted to announce that joining Professor Jean Hartley at this event will beCaspar de Bono, Managing Director B2B at the Financial Times, and Sue McAllister, Director General of the Prison Service, Northern Ireland. Both of whom are leading complex teams in challenging times and will share their contrasting experience and insights, alongside other leading field experts.

During the daytime masterclass, participants will be able to explore leadership best practice through action learning and workshops with peers. You will be able to take practical tools, techniques and ideas back to your organisation. The focus will be to explore the best and worst of leadership in the harsh current environment – is there a silver cloud amongst the gloom?

The stand-alone but complementary evening event will be hosted by the Dean of the Business School, Professor Rebecca Taylor and will include key notes from industry leaders.

Further details can be found on our website together with full details of costs and alumni Early Bird discounts. The full programme will be announced in the coming weeks, however, to register your interest or to book a place please contact Janet Barker.

We’re waiting to hear from you…

Visit our Business Perspectives blog for the latest insights and let us know your thoughts and comments on this topic. We look forward to hearing from you!

Have you got a brilliant business idea? It could be worth a share of £44,000!

Open to both students and alumni who graduated with the OU within the last two years, the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards offer a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the success of our student and graduate entrepreneurs. Not only could the awards potentially bring significant cash investment to aid your business idea, but the winners will also benefit from valuable press coverage from taking part in the nationally recognised awards.

What are the prizes?

As one of the 66 partner universities, the OU has been invited to submit two student or alumni business plans for the national competition – one each for the Undergraduate and Postgraduate categories.

Prizes

Undergraduate:
• 1st prize: £5,000
• 2nd prize: £3,000
• 3rd prize: £1,000

Postgraduate:
• 1st prize: £20,000
• 2nd prize: £10,000
• 3rd prize: £5,000

How to apply?

If you would like to discuss the particulars of this competition, please contact Dr Malcolm J Stokes on 01908 652885 or email malcolm.stokes@open.ac.uk. Further details may be obtained from Wendy King on 01908 654898 or email wendy.king@open.ac.uk. All submissions need be made by Tuesday 26th March 2013.

All entries will be assessed by a panel at The Open University. The two shortlisted proposals will then go forward to the national competition.

Santa Claus operated out of Frankfurt last year – and gave the Eurozone the fiscal equivalent of several billion stocking-fillers. But the European Central Bank’s largesse may not extend to those who don’t believe in it, writes Alan Shipman.

A single act of generosity by Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank (ECB) governor, has restored lasting calm to the previously turbulent Eurozone, neatly deflecting the winter blizzards across the Atlantic.

Draghi’s most dramatic achievement is to have radically reduced the cost of borrowing for Italy, Spain and other Eurozone countries that have large budget deficits to finance. This cost (the ‘bond yield’) fell to less than 5% in Spain’s early-January auction, from a crisis peak of more than 7.5%. It is a similar story in Draghi’s native Italy, where the public finances have been so effectively shored-up that voters can even contemplate a Silvio Berlusconi comeback. By promising ‘outright monetary transactions’ (OMT), the ECB has asserted the market-stabilising power long enjoyed by its American equivalent, the Federal Reserve. As a result, investors searching for higher yields have now moved back into corporate bonds and shares, lifting Eurozone stock markets to their highest level for two years.

From regarding the Euro area as a sinking ship that would either have to ditch its weakest members or be dragged underwater by them, some investors now view it as a better sovereign borrower than the previously mighty US. Both are currency zones with wide fiscal deficits. At present the US has a more impressive growth rate, while there is still a risk of weaker Eurozone members being cut adrift and forced into default. But in the longer term – if it can now hold together – the Eurozone has a better external balance (exporting more than it imports, thanks to Germany), greater power to impose fiscal discipline on its members, and stronger safeguards against unleashing inflation (sovereign borrowers’ traditional way of short-changing their creditors after securing the cash).

Debt guarantee 
Perhaps most remarkably, Draghi has achieved this monetary escapology without having to part with a single euro of ECB funds. All he has done is announced that his bank will, in future, buy up the debt of any Eurozone country that is forced to default. This guarantees the debt of Italy, Spain and other struggling member-states, making it safe for ordinary investors (and investment funds) to buy. Their governments can now continue to finance the public investment needed to restore growth so that banks and households can bring down their own debt, and the costs of welfare support until new jobs emerge.

The announcement was well timed, coming at a moment when banks and bond-buyers are globally desperate for high-yielding issues, and prefer those which have a government behind them, regardless of quality. After all, Ukraine with an economy stalled by sliding steel sales and politics sliding back into industrial oligarchy and Latvia bailed-out by the IMF in 2008 and dragged through Europe’s deepest ever recession have recently made successful bond issues, despite having higher currency risks and lower credit ratings than any Eurozone member.

Neither Spain nor Italy, the most dangerous of the Eurozone’s weak links, has asked for a bailout so far. Both know that, if they do so, they will be subject to a German-driven, EU-administered ‘adjustment programme’ – worsening their already perilous economic and social situation, and probably discrediting whichever government has to enforce the emergency measures. Their additional borrowing is raising the scale of any future rescue effort. The ECB’s calculation is that, by making it clear that all Euro debt will be honoured in the event of a bailout, this becomes less likely to happen. That’s because member countries now have the fiscal strength required to drive a recovery, and because speculators will stop short-selling the debt in order to fulfil their own expectations of its collapse. The ECB’s promise buys time for governments to act so that the promise won’t need to be fulfilled.

Cross-Channel fallout
If this gamble works, it should be good for other European governments – notably the UK, which will blame its imminent return to recession on the weakness of demand and investor confidence in the single currency area. But in one important respect, the Eurozone’s improbable gain is its non-members’ loss. The UK had retained its top AAA credit rating, allowing it to finance its overrunning budget deficit at negligible cost, partly because it was regarded as a ‘safe haven’ for investment funds that felt at risk from Eurozone exposure. Now that Euro debt has been turned into a positive one-way bet, that of the UK doesn't look so enticing.

A credit-rating downgrade need not (as the US has demonstrated) cause any rise in UK interest rates, or loss of confidence in its turnaround strategy. But it makes it harder to maintain the present low rates long enough to complete the banks’ recapitalisation and float Britain’s mortgage borrowers off the rocks. 

Mario Draghi is unlikely to be on George Osborne’s Christmas Card list at the end of 2013. But if his gamble succeeds, it’s a small price to pay.
Alan Shipman 24 February 2012

Alan Shipman is a lecturer in Economics at the Open University. He is responsible for the modules You and your money:personal finance in context and Personal investment in an uncertain world,  part of the foundation degree in Financial Services.

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Catherine Pain