GRN Data Insights
The Growth and Reform Network revealed new data based on its updated Cost of Living Index, highlighting the most vulnerable places in England in 2026. The index was based on five different indicators – fuel poverty, child poverty, economic inactivity, low pay and claimant count – and identified patterns of vulnerability across the country’s geographical landscape.
The index identified areas with complex, interconnected disadvantages, as well as areas that are not integrated into current devolution pathways, highlighting the risk of ‘slipping through the cracks’ in terms of government funding and interventions. The data also highlighted that child poverty is entrenched in certain areas and disconnected from improvements in pay and employment at the local authority and regional level.
Shared Themes and Challenges
One of the primary challenges identified across different regions in the UK is the difficulty in accessing granular, neighbourhood-level data. While indices are useful for painting a roadmap of vulnerability in cost of living across places, the lack of data-sharing agreements and departmental silos makes it difficult to target hotspot communities that need the most support.
Another recurring theme across regions concerned the lack of actionable plans to address available data and integrate it into relevant inclusive growth and economic development strategies. There is a shared sense that public services already know what works to improve outcomes, but the challenge lies in shifting from reactive crisis response mechanisms to preventative, ‘upstream’ intervention.
Some regions in England with the fastest growing economies outside London continue to face stagnant child poverty rates and low social mobility. This suggests that economic growth and expansion alone do not trickle down to the most deprived and vulnerable communities, and instead those born into poverty and deprivation are increasingly likely to remain disadvantaged.
Other shared themes include:
- There must be a shift in focus from economic growth to resilience, ensuring local economies can withstand shifts in factors such as low pay and economic inactivity.
- Early intervention and investment into public services, such as transport, skills, education and employment is at the heart of addressing child poverty and broader cost of living pressures.
- Interventions must be co-designed and co-produced with places, recognising the agencies families and children have in their communities, and moving beyond transactional support to community-led change.
- While combined authorities do not have traditional welfare remits, they identify transport and childcare as powerful levers for addressing cost of living.
- There is an ongoing effort to apply a ‘child poverty lens’ to departmental spending and ensure that investments in housing and skills have a direct and measurable impact on reducing deprivation.
- There is a key question about how the sector can encourage and enable families to break out of the ‘dependency’ cycle, through good employment opportunities.
Relevant Resources
