New research by University of Ulster academics Dr Ann Marie Gray and Goretti Horgan highlights the level of disparity between public funding in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

 The research is published in ‘Figuring it Out: Looking Behind the Social Statistics in Northern Ireland’’ which will be launched today at a policy forum organised by ARK, a joint social research initiative of the University of Ulster and QUB.

Among the issues highlighted by the academics are: 

• Spending on public transport in Northern Ireland lags significantly behind the rest of the UK.  Although capital expenditure on transport in Northern Ireland increased by 63.2% between 2001/02 and 2006/07, in Scotland, the percentage increase was more than four times that at 261%.

•  There is a clear link between poverty and poor educational outcomes.  Pupils in receipt of free school meals are only half as likely to have at least 5+ GCSEs (A*-C) and are four times more likely to have no qualifications.

• Just over half the children in the most deprived areas in Northern Ireland are registered with a dentist, compared to almost three quarters of children in the least deprived areas.

• Despite a community care policy, over half the £191 million expenditure in Mental Health services was for hospital settings (£98.7 million)

On the plus side, the figures show that the overall recycling rate for household waste in Northern Ireland has risen from 4.9% in 1998/99 to 31.7% in 2007/08 and that over the last two years, Northern Ireland has reduced the amount of household waste sent to landfill by 22,294 tonnes.

Dr Gray says the aim of the project was to make the information accessible to as wide a range of people as possible and the figures really speak for themselves. 

The new book also identifies significant trends and priority issues for social policy across a number of sectors including transport, the environment, health and social care, education, employment and culture, arts and sport.

Produced with the assistance of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, the book is the outcome of an ARK project aiming to inform and promote debate on social policy issues.  

The statistics are accompanied by a commentary looking at the reality behind the figures – and the challenges they present to government. 

The book also updates some of the data on the transfer test, which had originally been published by Gallagher and Smith for the Department of Education. 

In a foreword, Professor Ian Diamond, Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which funded the project, says the work makes an important contribution to encouraging social policy debate by making research and statistics accessible to a wide range of people, adding that this is particularly important in a region where devolution is still embedding.

At the launch of the book, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ulster, Professor Richard Barnett, said:  “This book is very much in keeping with the current emphasis on the need for academic research to have maximum impact in the wider community.  ARK is committed to high quality research and effective dissemination and I welcome this new development to ARK’s work.”

NOTES: 

• The book Figuring it Out: Looking Behind the Social Statistics in Northern Ireland is available at www.ark.ac.uk/publications/books/Figuringitout.pdf

•  ARK is a joint resource between the University of Ulster and Queen’s University, established in 2000. ARK has a single goal: to make social science information on Northern Ireland available to the widest possible audience. Core funding for ARK is provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as a large grant.

• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC’s planned total expenditure in 2009/10 is £204 million.  At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk  

 • The book was published with the assistance of the Northern Ireland Research and Statistics Agency (NISRA) whose staff provided data and background information. The final version represents the views of the authors and is not necessarily those of NISRA or any other government department 

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young