The importance of Indices of Multiple Deprivation
for spatial planning and community regeneration.

IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 34Vol. II, issue 2 ­ 2012

Andrea Raffaele Neri

ISSN: 2239­267X

The example of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation and
the related Communities First programme for the Italian
system.

andrearneri@gmail.com
MSc Regeneration Studies, School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University

ABSTRACT
The massive development of indices of multiple deprivation in the UK
has provided new data sets which have helped decision makers in
shaping innovative and effective strategies and programmes to tackle
local deprivation. Territorial planning is one of the more positively
affected sectors, together with community regeneration, where the
example of the Welsh Government’s programme, “Communities
First”, set a new standard of innovation in local government
practices. Conversely several problems affect the way indices of
multiple deprivation are carried out in Italy and the way they are
deployed. They are mostly developed at the regional level and their
use is only related to the health sector. Planning and local
government systems are still unaware of the potential of a national
index of multiple deprivation in their fields, so that the current
proposal to create an official national index is backed only by health



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INTRODUCTION
Deprivation is a wider concept than poverty. The term includes all those
aspects which prevent people from having access to the “desirable attributes,
possessions and opportunities which are considered no more than the
minimum by the society” (Coombes et al., 1995, p.5), such as education,
good health and so on.
Since the late 1990s, indices of deprivation have become a fundamental tool
to develop spatial plans and deliver regeneration programmes at the
neighbourhood scale in many countries. The indicators of deprivation
change from country to country because of the different issues and the
political influences, and their number tend to increase in time whenever the
indices are revised, improving the data set.
The release of official rankings of deprivation makes it easier for planners and
politicians to assess which areas are more in need of intervention and for what.
The related map of deprived areas is a powerful tool of appraisal for planning
at the local scale. It shows the need for intervention in local areas either from a
spatial planning perspective or in terms of community regeneration.
One of the most comprehensive and structured examples is the Welsh Index of
Multiple Deprivation (Welsh Government, 2011b). Updated and upgraded
four times since the first version was released in the year 2000, it has allowed
the national government to set a specific programme of intervention, known as
Communities First, to address the deprivation which affects the most
disadvantaged communities with unprecedented geographical precision.
Communities First, with a new approach to regeneration based on the truly
joined­up, bottom­up creation of partnerships between the Public, Private and
Third Sectors, aimed to encourage the engagement of the communities in the

sector bodies. In this paper the need to create a national, cross­
cutting and fully accessible index of multiple deprivation is
highlighted by analysing the features of the Italian indices published
in recent years and comparing them with those far more structured,
developed in the UK.

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decision process by tapping the potential of the neighbourhood scale of
intervention, with many examples of extremely positive outcomes.
In Italy the attempts to introduce effective regeneration programmes aimed
to address deprivation with geographical precision were historically
frustrated by the lack of information about the neighbourhood scale. The
statistical data sets available were mostly concerned with demographic and
economic issues, lacking quality of life indicators. This made the mapping
of regeneration areas a matter of questionable and strictly top­down
technical or political choice and disconnected from any measure of
deprivation. The concept of deprivation itself, in the Italian language, is
related with issues of health, and since 1999 a number of indices of multiple
deprivation were released, but strictly in connection with that sector. From
the planners perspective, this use of the indices of multiple deprivation
exclusively for the Health sector should be perceived as one of the most
important causes of ineffectiveness in the regeneration programmes, but in
Italy the debate on the topic is still in its infancy. Another limiting feature of
the Italian indices is that they are mostly created at the regional level, with a
tendency of fragmentation of information.
The aim of this paper is to raise the interest of those involved in spatial
planning and community regeneration in Italy about the application of
indices of multiple deprivation, as fundamental tools for strategic analysis,
policy making and planning.
The methodology of this paper is mostly based on the analysis of case­
oriented literature through qualitative methods, nonetheless elements of
secondary quantitative analysis underlie the research, particularly in the
evaluation of the most structured indices examined. The most relevant and
updated literature about the case study of Wales was compared with the Italian
system and its academic leaders (Testi, Ivaldi, and Busi, 2005; Caranci, and
Costa, 2009; etc.) concluding with suggestions for improvements from
comparison (LeBlanc, 2004 and Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2009).

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INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION: AN OVERVIEW
“Deprivation refers to unmet need, which is caused by a lack of resources of
all kinds, not just financial.”
(University of Oxford, 2001, p.4)
Deprivation and poverty is not the same, although the terms have been used
often, and wrongly, interchangeably. Poverty is the lack of the financial
resources that individuals, families and groups need to satisfy the basic
needs of subsistence and social integration (Townsend, 1979) while
deprivation is a wider concept, concerning the lack of conditions for
individuals, families and groups to obtain happiness. People live in poverty
if they can’t afford to escape the deprivation (Townsend, 1987, p.125).
The percentage of people with an income below x% of the median of the
population is the acknowledged measure of poverty (European Commission,
1996), where the value of the x changes in time and space. On the other
hand, deprivation can be analysed with different measures in different
perspectives depending on the object of the study (such as the estimates of
life expectancy or the prevalence of tobacco use in case of health
deprivation; the access to schools and training in case of education and skills
deprivation). An index which incorporates different types of deprivation is
an index of multiple deprivation where the scores are generated by the
weighted combination of the different aspects taken into account. Income, a
measure of poverty, is also an indicator of multiple deprivation, but many
other aspects must be taken into consideration to obtain a measure of the
latter. Thus, new sets of indicators must be added to income.
The choice of the indicators is the centre­piece of the indices and they are
drawn up depending on the purpose of collection of information and the
nature of the method. Referring to the Council of Europe (2005, p.98) there
are three main types of social indicators: quantitative and objective
(measurable values, e. g. number of unemployed); qualitative and objective
(not measurable but verifiable, e. g. presence or absence of something);
qualitative and subjective (e. g. level of satisfaction). The right indicators
answer the right questions. Therefore, a measure of multiple deprivation

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must take into account those features which highly influence the actual life
conditions of the population (e. g. the geographical access to services, a
central indicator in sparsely occupied areas, may be secondary in dense
towns). The choice of the weights as an expression of the importance of an
indicator in generating the overall scores must be carefully pondered. The
national indices, covering very different scenarios within the same model,
set a compromise level between the weight of the domains which have
different importance in different situations (as in the above example of
geographical access to services).
Every type of index should always report the source of the data. The most
used source is the census, but other sources from specific social and economic
groups or different levels of government can be acceptable if reliable.
A famous example of index of multiple deprivation is the Townsend Index of
Disadvantage and Deprivation (Townsend, 1987). It was the first one to provide
a material measure of multiple deprivation combining four different variables
to form the overall score: unemployment, non­car ownership, non­home
ownership, household overcrowding. The higher the Townsend Index, the more
deprived an area is thought to be. In time the model has been improved, but the
mechanism in which the indices are created is roughly the same.
INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION IN THE UK: ENGLAND AND WALES
During the post war years a great number of specific areas of policy indices
were released in the UK, particularly concerning education and health. Since
the 1960s the creation of cross­cutting measures of deprivation at the local
scale became a target for central government, but the means that triggered
the actual implementation of the project was the availability of electronic
databases for the Census in the 1980s with the enumeration district of the
local areas (University of Oxford, 2000b, p.4). New tools to store and
process information made possible the development of new indices whose
scores were obtained by summing different variables.
The first national Census to provide a Townsend Index at the scale of the
electoral wards (the Census Output Areas, name later changed in Lower
Super Output Areas) was the UK Census 1991. In the following Censuses of
2001 and 2011 the Index became more sophisticated, following the changing

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social patterns of a changing society, for instance with additional
information required in the Census about ethnicity. Nevertheless, the new
areas were not directly targeting deprivation because of various publications:
in 1991 the more specific Index of Local Conditions (Department of
Environment, 1991), in 1998 the Index of Local Deprivation (Department of
Environment, Transport and Regions, 1998) and in 2000 the very
comprehensive Index of Multiple Deprivation 2000 for England (University
of Oxford, 2000a) and the Index of Multiple Deprivation for Wales
(University of Oxford, 2000b). The first Scottish Index of Multiple
Deprivation was published in 2004 and the Northern Ireland Multiple
Deprivation Measure one year later. The latest version of the English and
Welsh Indices were issued respectively in 2010 and 2011.
The English and Welsh Indices were made up of six domains of deprivation:

Neri ­ Indices of Multiple Deprivation for spatial planning and community regeneration

­ Income.
­ Employment.
­ Health.
­ Education, Skills and Training.
­ Housing.
­ Geographical Access to Services.

A seventh domain (which did not influence the overall index) of Child Poverty
was included in the overall scores. Others were added in time: Crime (Security
in Wales) and Living Environment (Physical Environment in Wales), while the
English Indices cut the Geographical access to services domain.
Each ward had a score, which allowed the central government, for the first
time ever, to have an objective and highly reliable ranking of deprivation of
local areas comparable in time. The Summary Reports of the Indices also
provided disaggregated data and rankings for each domain. Moreover,
regional rankings, thematic maps, Geographical Information Systems and
local tables were published, contributing to a widespread interest in the
Indices, all available on the web ( the Deprivation Map of England is even
available on Google Maps), and providing a sound foundation for
regeneration activities at different scales.
The indices have had a great relevance in strategic planning at the national
scale. Particularly the distribution and prioritization of grants and
development funding to local authorities and bodies in different sectors has



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been highly influenced by the results of the indices. In spatial planning, it
has meant more attention for physical renewal or the provision of services
and transport in the most deprived areas. It also represented a great
opportunity to focus the efforts for community regeneration. It was the last
step in a long process of investment in local development. For many decades
councils in the UK have increasingly empowered neighbourhoods, a model
which inspired also the European Union which embraced it since 1988 for
the Leader programme and the following creation of the Local Action
Groups, where the role of ward and youth forums is central (Rogers, 2004,
p.24). Thus both England and Wales were ready to set­up ambitious and
innovative local regeneration programmes specifically related to the new
statistical databases of multiple deprivation, respectively Neighbourhood
Renewal Areas and Communities First. The English programme was a lot
bigger, in terms of the total amount and concentration of resources, in
relation to the Welsh Communities First, but the latter resisted the cuts
following the economic recession and it is still a priority in the political
agenda of the national government for the next years.

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Figure 1 – Distribution of multiple deprivation in England (left) (Communities and Local
Government, 2010) and Wales (right) (Welsh Government, 2011b).



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TAPPING THE POTENTIAL OF THE INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION FOR
REGENERATION PURPOSES: COMMUNITIES FIRST IN WALES.
The Welsh Assembly Government defined regeneration as the process which:
“aims to make sustainable places over time to improve the quality of life of the
people who live and work there.” (Welsh Assembly Government, 2010, p. 21)
Communities First is the long term flagship regeneration programme,
established by the Welsh Assembly Government in 2001, to address
problems of deprivation and social exclusion in the most deprived wards of
the country. It is a remarkable example of a cross­cutting, spatially targeted
policy tool whose application is strictly connected with indices of multiple
deprivation, since eligibility is based on these scores. Originally only the
100 most deprived Lower Super Output Areas of statistics of the country (as
ranked by the first Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation) were eligible to be
included in the programme; over ten years the number almost doubled with
the inclusion of new neighbourhoods in the newly updated deprivation
rankings of the Welsh Indices of Multiple Deprivation 2005 and 2008 and 10
“communities of interest” selected by the Welsh Assembly Government
(Welsh Assembly Government, 2006). Each of the eligible wards has on
average less than 3,000 inhabitants.
The typical top­down approach to regeneration, concerned with issues of
physical environment improvements, had been formulated with little or no
involvement of the people who would be the final consumers of the product,
and it substantially failed to trigger lasting community growth, particularly
in the most deprived areas (Porter and Shaw, 2009, p. 6; Hackney and
Sweet, 1990, p. 149).
In contrast, Communities First has an extremely innovative approach to
regeneration, based on joined­up community building. The strategies to
undertake the process (Community Action Plans) are community­led and
central government action is only concerned with supplying skills and the
basic resources to be transferred in loco. In fact Communities First often
undertook actions of physical transformation of the areas through landmark
projects or development strategies.

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The Communities First groups are funded with a basic Core Fund and the
Outcomes and Trust Funds provide additional resources for the delivery of
specific projects, meant to encourage efficiency and innovation. The local
groups aim also to bend into the area different streams of funding from other
public bodies or the private and third sector. Communities First works as a
magnet of tangible and intangible resources to benefit the most deprived
areas where the market and the typical public sector funding failed in doing
so the last decades (Morgan, K., 2010).
The path which has been undertaken is the response of the Welsh
Government to Agenda 21 (UN, 1992, Section 3) in strengthening the role of
local and weak groups in sustainable development (Welsh Government,
2011a). Some deprived areas really benefitted from the programme and a
number of leading, highly innovative and successful cases have been
reported (Welsh Government, 2011c). The local Communities First
partnerships could define specific areas of intervention using the Welsh
Index of Multiple Deprivation as a road map to direct the efforts where it
was most needed. The Index, which has been updated every few years, also
provides objective data to evaluate whether the actions put on place brought
tangible advantages in the areas or not. In fact, an important debate is taking
place about the time required from a radical regeneration tool like this to
bring tangible changes in the figures (Public Accounts Committee, 2010 and
Hinch and Robson, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2010), but the many
positive outcomes made the Welsh Government committed to continue and
further invest in it after its initial planned end in 2012.
INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION IN ITALY: OVERVIEW AND ACADEMIC
RECOGNITION

In the Italian language, the word deprivazione (or privazione, as suggested by
Morbelli, 2002, p.8) has the same meaning of the English deprivation, but its
usage is substantially different, being focused on issues of medical science or
psychology in a narrow concept, for instance regarding the deprivation or
privation of sleep or parental care. No direct connection with social needs is
attached to the word and deprivation only affects the individual, specifically
his health. For this reason, the concept itself of deprivazione multipla really is

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difficult to be fully understood in Italy. This is because the concept of
deprivation narrowly lies on individual and strictly medical issues, so that only
medical treatments are remedies to resolve the problem.
In fact in Italy deprivation is not associated with regeneration which still is
mostly regarded in planning practice as a matter of physical improvement. The
word itself rigenerazione is mainly used, in town planning jargon, as
synonymous with urban renewal, if not specified as sociale to highlight the
importance of social aspects, or ambientale for environmental improvement. In
the Italian language the word lacks of the comprehensive meaning it has in
English.
Many academic voices have been raised lately about the need to widen the
concept of regeneration and to work to harmonise the activities which have
an influence on it. They roughly are those domains which form the indices
of multiple deprivation in the UK, another proof of the intimate links
between the indices and regeneration practice. An important claim to
acknowledge the importance of intangible factors (environmental gain/loss,
satisfaction of the communities etc.) came from the academic world (e.g.
Della Morte, 2010, p.1) but specific measures to include them into the
decision making progress were developed only for feasibility studies (such
as Valutazione di Impatto Ambientale, Environmental Impact Evaluation, or
Valutazione Ambientale Strategica, Environmental Strategic Evaluation) and
ex post evaluations. The strategic decision processes on the other hand
cannot use qualitative indicators to establish comprehensive regeneration
programmes because indices and rankings are not provided, making the
decisions strictly a matter of political or technical choice. The responsibility
for this situation lay with the static approach of academic teachings and the
professional planning bodies. As a proof of that, important examples of
indices of multiple deprivation already exist in Italy, as explained in detail in
the section on Italian case studies of indices of multiple deprivation, but they
are completely ignored for spatial planning and regeneration purposes.
POTENTIAL OF INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION IN SPATIAL PLANNING IN
ITALY
The system of spatial planning in Italy would undoubtedly benefit from the

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use of indices of multiple deprivation. The traditional system of spatial
planning in Italy has not developed adequate tools to understand the needs
of deprived areas and how to meet them effectively. The improvements
made in recent years in the participative systems included in the plan
making processes cannot overcome a fundamental problem: the absence of
official measures of deprivation able to demonstrate, on an objective basis,
the importance of effecting certain actions in certain areas rather than others.
Although the involvement of local people is vital to develop the plans on
solid grounds, it does not provide comparative data on supra­local scale to
prioritize the use of the limited resources. For that use it is essential to have
an index of multiple deprivation as a strategic analysis tool. Just a few
examples: a map of "educational deprivation", which takes into account the
presence of illiteracy, the percentage of population holding higher
educational qualifications, etc. would help the efficient location of new
school facilities; a map of health deprivation would emphasize the need to
prefer some areas for the location of new hospitals, sports fields, parks etc.
The same applies to any other domain of deprivation included in the indices.
A tool such as the index of multiple deprivation that takes into account
simultaneously the different indicators is a scan of the local area. It allows the
planner to have the pulse of the problems affecting the area on an objective
basis in comparison with all other points of reference, usually on a national
scale but, as in many Italian cases, even at regional or provincial levels.
The use of indices of multiple deprivation in spatial planning in Italy would
be even more beneficial if associated with community regeneration on a
regular basis. In fact, its advantages would not be limited to planning, as in
the examples cited above, but also to the management of the plans. The
example of the Welsh Communities First is illuminating. The index in this
case is first used to select the areas on which to intervene by establishing
specialist regeneration teams, and then to direct their efforts to those specific
points in the area which show greatest difficulties.
A simple example will help to show the usefulness of inserting regeneration
projects in deprived areas: the mere creation of a public park for the purpose
of improving environmental and social conditions is not enough, it does not
entail an automatic success if the people are not taught to care and to fully
exploit its potential. To this end it is important that communities, particularly

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the most deprived, are guided in an inclusive process of enhancement of
their social capital.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of zoning in Italian spatial planning,
initiatives comparable with Communities First would not have the strength
to develop comprehensive spatial transformations on their own.
ITALIAN CASE STUDIES OF INDICES OF MULTIPLE DEPRIVATION
Two indices of multiple deprivation have been created at the national scale
in Italy, both coming from pioneering attempts which scarcely resonated
outside a few academic circles and regional bodies. At this point, the
implementation of indices of deprivation at the regional level and the
proposals to create a national database in Italy come from the regional
Health Agencies and the debate is not having any contribution from other
areas, such as town planning, housing etc.
The Italian indices of multiple deprivation have two main features:
fragmentation and sectorialism. Fragmentation in this case is the process of
regionalization of the development of indices of multiple deprivation
followed the increased devolution of powers to that level of government.
The positive aspect of fragmentation is that Regions had the opportunity to
create their own databases of local information. The most negative aspect is
the lack of coordination with other bodies in the choice of the indicators,
which makes really difficult, if not impossible, the comparison between
national and supranational situations and the harmonization of the data into a
national database. Some attempts have been developed to promote the
adoption of a national index, but with little success.
Sectorialism is the tendency to create indices of multiple deprivation for
very narrow and specific uses. Because the commitment of these studies
comes from specific areas of interest, particularly the health sector, they tend
to consider multiple domains of deprivation, but with important bias in the
choice of the indicators and weights. In fact, this type of indices of multiple
deprivation end up as improved versions of the old indices of x (health, food
etc.) deprivation. Indices created for specific sectors are commonly less
accessible than cross­cutting ones.

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The first relevant example of an index of multiple deprivation in Italy is the
Indice di Deprivazione per l'Analisi Geografica delle Diseguaglianze di
Mortalità (Index of Deprivation for the Geographical Analysis of Death
Rate Inequality) developed in 1999 (Cadum et al, 1999). For the first time,
an index of multiple deprivation was comprehensive, covering all of the
more than 8,000 municipalities present in the Italian national 1991 census.
Its aim was to analyse the correlation between the SMR (Standardized
Mortality Ratios) and local deprivation. Six weighted variables composed
the Index:

Neri ­ Indices of Multiple Deprivation for spatial planning and community regeneration

­ Income.
­ Unemployment.
­ Education.
­ Renter occupied housing.
­ Presence of indoor bathroom.
­ Percentage of single parents with childhood.

The analysis was carried out separately for gender and classes of age (over
and under 65). The Index demonstrated a high correlation between
deprivation and rate of mortality and the map resulted clearly showed the
disadvantaged situation of the Southern regions, islands and Alps,
particularly in the class of age under 65 and almost irrespective of difference
of gender. The principal shortcoming of the Index is the scale of the unit of
deprivation, which is not the census area but the aggregated municipal unit.
This made the results of the Index completely meaningless when they
concerned the major towns because of the enormous internal disparities the
Index could not measure. It also wrongly named the classes of deprivation,
defining ricco (wealthy) as the opposite of deprived, again forgetting the fact
that deprivation does not relate exclusively with income.



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A new Index of Deprivation was published in 2008 (Caranci et al, 2008;
Caranci and Costa, 2009) to improve the 1999 version and update it using as
a source the 2001 census data. It is best known as the Caranci Index. Five
indicators compose the index: percentage population with poor education,
unemployment, occupied dwellings for rent, percentage of single parents
with dependent children, population density.

Figure 2 – Map of Multiple Deprivation in Italy from 1991
Census ­ Municipalities (Cadum et al, 1999).

Figure 3 – Maps of Multiple Deprivation in Italy from 2001 Census – Municipalities (left) and
Census Units (right) (Caranci et al, 2008, pp.23­24).



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The Index used the census divisions instead of the municipal aggregated
data as deprivation units to increase the detail of information (varying from
an average of 7,000 inhabitants per unit to 170) which would make the data
for the main metropolitan areas more meaningful. The authors again
intended the index to be ancillary to studies of epidemiology, with no
contribution from other areas in the choice of the indicators and weights.
This is a controversial point, because this choice may have led to an even
increased tendency toward sectorialism in the publication of following
indices of multiple deprivation in Italy.
Recently two Regions, Emilia­Romagna and Marche, speaking as
representatives of all the Italian Regions, jointly put forward to the Minister of
Health the proposal for the implementation of the Caranci Index all over the
national territory and earmarking about 10 percent of the Fondo Sanitario
Nazionale (the National Health Fund) to be distributed using this new
reference (Quotidiano Sanità, 2011a). The proposal was firmly rejected by the
former Minister of Health Fazio during a Parliamentary hearing because the
Index of Deprivation does not incorporate some indicators (various forms of
disability) and weights (for classes of age) which would be fundamental for
the effective distribution of the resources in the Health sector (Quotidiano
Sanità, 2011b). In the near future, the publication of the Census 2011,
expected in February 2012, is likely to reopen the debate, given also the
change of government and the worsening of the economic scenario.
In the last ten years other indices of multiple deprivation have been
developed at the regional and sub­regional levels, the provincial level. It
became an incremental process where new indicators were added to the
basic Index of Material Deprivation (Townsend, 1987) to form, at first, the
IDS ­ Indice di Deprivazione Sociale (Index of Social Deprivation) and,
later, the IAS ­ Indice di Area Svantaggiata (Index of Disadvantaged Area).
The only indicator added to the Index of Material Deprivation to form the
IDS was the percentage of single parent families with dependent children,
while the only indicator added to the IDS to form the IAS was the index of
aging, with a set of variables drawn from the health and care sector. The
indicators and variables used are extremely poor in describing social
deprivation and the level of disadvantage of the areas, but still they were

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used in two regional indices of deprivation.
Sardinia published in 2006 (Minerba and Vacca, 2006) the clear and
comprehensive results of the application of these three Indices, created using
census data:

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Figure 4 – Indices of deprivation for the analysis of the inequalities between the
Municipalities of Sardinia (Minerba and Vacca, 2006, p.1).

The terminology is slightly more appropriate, naming the less deprived class
molto agiato (very well­off) unlike most of the Italian indices where it is
rendered as ricco (wealthy), but still needs to be improved. The best solution
would probably be to simply use the term meno deprivato (less deprived),
bearing in mind we are referring to a notion of deprivation relative to the
case study to which we benchmark the results and not in absolute terms. The
choice to publish three separate indices is motivated by the fact that each of
them can be deployed for different uses in different areas. On the other hand
it makes the spreading of the knowledge of the Indices more difficult and
allows the misunderstanding and exploitation of one Index or the other for
political use. The Sardinia case shows how the inclusion or non inclusion of
any indicator drastically influences the map of multiple deprivation.
The rankings of the three types of deprivation per local area were not
published apart for the provincial aggregated results.
Unfortunately, the lack of central guidance makes the regions uncertain
about which kind of index to adopt, or with regard of developing their own
models. Besides Sardinia, Piemonte, Basilicata and Abruzzo preferred to
publish an Indice di Area Svantaggiata (Index of Disadvantaged Area)



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together with the Caranci Index, considered synonymous to an Index of
Material Deprivation.
The case of Abruzzo (Agenzia Sanitaria Regionale Abruzzo, 2011) is
particularly structured, because the Index of Deprivation proposed for the
national use has been applied with no relevant changes for the regional
studies, relating epidemiological analysis and local deprivation, while the
Index of Disadvantaged Area was implemented independently to include
additional data. In this case was avoided a duplication of efforts and costs,
making the most of what was already available. Again, no rankings of local
deprivation were published.

Figure 5 – Abruzzo: Index of Deprivation (left) and Index of Disadvantaged
Area (right) (Agenzia Sanitaria Regionale Abruzzo, 2011, p. 6).

This brief overview of Italian examples concludes with two indices proposed
in the region of Liguria which reinforced the current trend of considering
deprivation mostly as an auxiliary to the mortality/diseases rates analysis.
The first is the Index of Multiple Deprivation for the Province of Savona
(Lillini et al, 2005) published by the Mortality Registry of the Liguria Region.
The Index was created to verify the correlation between local deprivation and
mortality rate. Although the area of interest of the study was the same of the
Cadum’s Index (Cadum et al, 1999) there is no mention of this or any
comparison with its results. Eight variables were chosen within two main
indicators (Population and Dwellings). No rankings were released and a
number of flaws in the terminology used were the same as already stressed in
the above examples. This study might have had relevance for specific
purposes, but fragmentation and sectorialism lowered its potential.



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Figure 6 – Index of Multiple Deprivation for the Province of Savona (Lillini et al, 2005, p.13).
The second is the Index of Deprivation for the Municipality of Genoa (Testi,
Ivaldi and Busi, 2004, Part 2). The authors aimed to set an index of material
deprivation (where issues of demographic or ethnic minorities are not taken
into account, as the authors specified, p.8) on the model of Townsend
(Townsend, 1987) but updating the indicators and changing them in response
of features of contemporary Italian society. For instance, indicators like “car
ownership” or “social class” were not taken into consideration, for they were
deemed outdated. Moreover, the study incorporated the Indice di
Deprivazione per l'Analisi Geografica delle Diseguaglianze di Mortalità
(Cadum et al 1999) we analysed above in the choice of the indicators. The
statistical units were the Unità Urbanistiche, another name for the census
units, 71 areas averaging around 9,500 inhabitants. Four indicators were
selected: a) unemployment, b) housing ownership, c) overcrowding, d)
education level. Six classes of deprivation were identified and a ranking table
of the local areas score against the Index was included, the only case in Italy
where only maps of deprivation are commonly published. But the choice of
the terminology for the classes was not appropriate and the set of indicators
could be improved, but in this case the British example was followed
faithfully in the presentation of the results organized in ranking tables.



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Figure 7 – Index of Deprivation for Genoa, Deprivation Map (Testi, Ivaldi and Busi, 2004,
Besides the publication of these local Indices, the Regione Liguria developed
a comprehensive study of the relations between local strategic programmes
(Programmi Organici d’Intervento, Contratti di quartiere, 20,000 alloggi) and
the property market based on the study above, but it was kept for internal use.
This practice was not an isolated initiative, because until a few years ago most
of the Mediterranean countries were still quite reluctant to accept the idea of
publishing the results in “official rankings” of neighbourhood deprivation
fearing the stigmatization of the most disadvantaged areas and causing
clamour which would have had political influence. See the illustrative case of
the Index of Multiple Deprivation developed by the Generalitat Valenciana,
Spain (Cristoforetti and Ghiara, 2006, p.111).
CONCLUSIONS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE ITALIAN INDICES
During the last decades, the UK developed very comprehensive and precise
indices of multiple deprivation, one for each nation which compose the
country. They are central and essential tools for spatial and strategic planning.
Their use has a crucial importance in the management of communities and
local government, but it also demonstrated great relevance in different sectors,
such as health, community safety and so on. The use of the same indicators for
the whole nations and their stability throughout the regularly updated versions



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of the Indices provide reliable comparisons in time and space. Finally the
awareness of the features of the Indices is spread well over academia and it
is matter of debate in most of the local areas. The use of easily accessible
public rankings and maps help this process. Spatial planning bodies
deployed the tool to efficiently select and prioritize their actions in response
of the real needs of the population. A remarkable example of application of
an index of multiple deprivation in community regeneration is Communities
First, the Welsh Government programme specifically designed to address
problems of community deprivation and social exclusion in Wales.
Conversely, in Italy, the process has been sluggish and confused. From the
comparison between the UK indices of multiple deprivation and those
published in Italy it is possible to highlight a number of important flaws in
the way the latter are conceived and presented.
The underlying problem of the narrow meaning of the words deprivation and
regeneration in the Italian language adversely influences the quality and
scope of the Italian indices. To overcome the problem the first step is to gain
a full academic recognition of it. The official documents also should use the
terms more carefully, avoiding the mismatching between deprivation and
poverty. Moreover, a wider conception of regeneration would make clear the
need for indices of multiple deprivation for community building purposes,
including, for instance, the activities of local councils, planning bodies and
housing associations.
In Italy the lacuna in the availability of qualitative data for ex ante
operations concerning deprivation has been questionably filled in some
regional and sub­regional attempts to create indices of local multiple
deprivation. They were important initiatives, but the problem of
fragmentation makes the achievements less valuable: duplication of data led
to waste of time and resources and mismatching in the choice of indicators
and terminology makes difficult any harmonization of the outputs. The
Caranci Index is the only one ever applied at the national scale giving a
measure of neighbourhood multiple deprivation, but it was not backed by
the national authorities.
Thus the experimental phase should come to an end giving space to a more
mature standardization and stabilization of the indices. The only way to
achieve it is to create a national index of multiple deprivation completely



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managed by national bodies. The National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT),
which already is responsible for the collection of the census data, would
arguably be the most appropriate for this task.
To resolve the problem of the sectorialism in the Italian indices, the only
means is to make more professional bodies and groups (other than those
operating in the Health sector) participate in the choice of the indicators and
weights. They also have to take the indices into consideration as essential
tools for strategic planning.
One of the many results of the publication of indices must clearly be the
earmarking of resources for the areas found most in need. The rejected
proposal by the Regions to the national government to allocate 10% of the
National Health Fund to deprived areas was a good example of that, and a
similar approach should be adopted in other sectors like housing, urban
design, cultural activities, etc.
Accessibility to the indices must be drastically improved to make them
effectively available through specific websites, interactive maps and other
relevant technological means. The rationale is to spread awareness,
knowledge and debate about them. For this reason official rankings should
be published, providing at the same time action plans to help the deprived
areas to improve their status, with a long term support from the national
government bodies regardless of the political interests.
The findings of this paper underline the fact that to achieve all these points it
will be fundamental that key bodies at the national level (politicians first)
commit themselves to put a national index of multiple deprivation and
comprehensive regeneration programmes in place, following the example of
the UK and Welsh governments and many of their professional bodies.
Italian regional and local representatives together with spatial planning and
regeneration professional bodies, on the other hand, should organize the
debate and frame specific programmes to deploy the index in the most
effective way, contributing at the same time to show what would be the
potential of the tool.



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APPENDIX
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN INDEX OF MULTIPLE
DEPRIVATION IN ITALY BASED ON THE BES PROJECT WHICH CAN BE USEFUL
FOR PLANNING PURPOSES.
The BES Project (Benessere Equo e Solidale Project, Fair and Supportive
Well­being Project), started in June 2012, aims to provide measures of well­
being (including issues of inequality and sustainability) able to overcome the
narrow conception of GDP (Misure del benessere, 2012). The public
institutions which promoted the initiative are ISTAT and CNEL, the most
relevant ones in the fields, respectively, of statistics and economy at the
national level. At this stage they provided the framework, the research itself is
still being undertaken and some data gathered. It has the form of a index with
12 domains and 134 indicators. The units of statistics are mostly regions, but
the framework is really innovative for Italy and applicable as a index of non­
deprivation. Finally it is important to highlight the remarkable variety of
sources of data. The National Institution for Statistics ISTAT will not be the
only source for Ministries and Institutions operating in environmental,
economic and social research (not only in the public sector but also NGOs)
will provide specific data for the project.
Follows the full list of domains and indicators (for every indicator is clearly
expressed the source of the data, the periodicity, the scale of the statistic, the
variables used and the rationale for it in the BES website, Misure del
Benessere, 2012):

1. ENVIRONMENT
1 ­ Drinking water.
2 ­ Water quality in coastal areas.
3 ­ Quality of the air in urban areas.
4 ­ Urban green areas.
5 ­ Areas with hydrological problems.
6 ­ Contaminated sites.
7 ­ Terrestrial protected areas.
8 ­ Marine protected areas.
9 ­ Areas of outstanding natural beauty.
10 ­ Loss of biodiversity worries.



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11 ­ Flows of matter.
12 ­ Energy from renewable sources.
13 ­ Emissions of CO2 and other climate­altering gases.

2. HEALTH
1 ­ Life expectancy at birth.
2 ­ Life in good health expectancy.
3 ­ Index of physical state.
4 ­ Index of psychological state.
5 ­ Infant mortality rate.
6 ­ Standardized mortality rate for accidents of transport.
7 ­ Standardized mortality rate for cancer.
8 ­ Standardized mortality for dementia and related diseases.
9 ­ Life expectancy without limitations in the everyday activities aged 65.
10 ­ Overweight.
11 ­ Smoke.
12 ­ Alcohol.
13 ­ Sedentary lifestyle.
14 ­ Diet.

3. ECONOMIC WELL­BEING
1 ­ Average disposable income per capita adjusted (comprehensive of in kind

services).
2 ­ Index of inequality of disposable income.
3 ­ Index of risk of relative poverty.
4 ­ Average per capita net wealth.
5 ­ Index of financial vulnerability.
6 ­ Index of absolute poverty.
7 ­ Index of severe material deprivation.
8 ­ Index of housing quality.
9 ­ Index of subjective assessment of economic difficulty.
10 ­ Incidence of individuals living in households with no employed.
(Additional indicator proposed: Index of children deprivation).

4. EDUCATION AND TRAINING
1 ­ Participation rate in pre­primary school.
2 ­ Proportion of people aged 25­64 with at least a high school diploma.
3 ­ Proportion of people aged 30­34 who have completed a university degree.



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4 ­ Rate of early exit from the system of education and training.
5 ­ Proportion of young people who don’t work nor study.
6 ­ People aged 25­64 who participate in education and training activities.
7 ­ Level of literacy of students.
8 ­ Proportion of people with high levels of computer competence.
9 ­ Synthetic indicator of the level of cultural participation.

5. WORK/LIFE
1 ­ Employment rate of people aged 25­64.
2 ­ Work non­participation rate.
3 ­ Percentage of changes in the course of one year from unstable jobs to

stable jobs.
4 ­ Percentage of employed in short­term jobs for at least 5 years.
5 ­ Incidence of low­wage employees.
6 ­ Incidence of under­educated employees.
7 ­ Incidence of over­educated employees.
8 ­ Rate of fatal accidents and permanent inability.
9 ­ Relationship between the employment rate for women 25­49 years old

with children under school age and women without children.
10 ­ Asymmetry index of family labour.
11 ­ Percentage of population aged 15­64 that does more than 60 hours per

week of paid work and / or domestic.
12 ­ Percentage of employees covered by second level collective contracting.
13 ­ Rate of employees working in a company where there is union

representation.
14 ­ Perception of insecurity in the employment.
15 ­ Satisfaction for the work done.

6. SOCIAL RELATIONS
1 ­ Social participation.
2 ­ Generalized trust.
3 ­ NGOs per 10,000 residents.
4 ­ Social cooperatives per 10,000 residents.
5 ­ Valunteering activity.
6 ­ Free assistance given.
7 ­ Financing of associations.
8 ­ Satisfaction for the family relations.
9 ­ Satisfaction for the friendship relations.



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10 ­ People you can count on.
11 ­ Fun activities for children from 3 to 10 years conducted with parents.

7. SAFETY
1 ­ Homicide rate.
2 ­ Burglary rate.
3 ­ Rate of pickpocketing.
4 ­ Robbery rate.
5 ­ Physical violence rate.
6 ­ Raping rate.
7 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who feel safe walking alone in

the dark areas where they live.
8 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who are worried (very or fairly)

to experience a sexual assault.
9 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who have been afraid of being

subjected to an offense in the last 12 months.
10 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who often see elements of social

and environmental degradation in the area where you live.
11 ­ Rate of domestic violence on women.

8. SUBJECTIVE WELL­BEING
1 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who have expressed a satisfaction

score for the life of between 8 and 10.
2 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who declares very satisfied with

leisure.
3 ­ Percentage of people aged 14 and over who consider their personal

situation will improve over the next 5 years.
9. LANDSCAPE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

1 ­ Relevance of cultural heritage.
2 ­ Current public municipal expenditure per capita used in the management

of cultural heritage (museums, libraries and art galleries).
3 ­ Rate of illegal building.
4 ­ Rate of urbanization in protected areas.
5 ­ Erosion of the countryside from urban sprawl.
6 ­ Erosion of the countryside by abandoning.
7 ­ Presence of historical rural landscapes.
8 ­ Assessment the quality of rural development programming (RDP



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regional) in protecting of the landscape.
9 ­ Density of historic urban parks of significant public interest.

10 ­ Consistency of the historic urban fabric.
11 ­ People not satisfied with the quality of the landscape of the place where

they live.
12 ­ Concern about the deterioration of the landscape values.

10. RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
1 ­ Intensity of research.
2 ­ Propensity to patent.
3 ­ Incidence of knowledge workers on employment.
4 ­ Rate of innovation in the production system.
5 ­ Rate of innovation in the services/products in the national productive

system.
6 ­ Production specialization in knowledge intensive sectors.
7 ­ Intensity in the use of internet.

11. QUALITY OF THE SERVICES
1 ­ Index of accessibility to hospitals providing emergency services.
2 ­ Beds in nursing homes and hospitals.
3 ­ Waiting lists.
4 ­ Percentage of regional population served by natural gas.
5 ­ Separate collection of municipal waste.
6 ­ Synthetic index of accessibility to some services (schools, police stations etc).
7 ­ Density of urban public transport networks.
8 ­ Index of accessibility of transport networks.
9 ­ Percentage of charged users of children services.

10 ­ Percentage of elders in integrated home care service.
11 ­ Index of the overcrowding of prisons.
12 ­ Disruptions in the water supply.
13 ­ Use of landfills.
14 ­ Disruptions in the electric service.
15 ­ Time dedicated to mobility.

12. POLITICS AND ISTITUTIONS
1 ­ Voter turnout.
2 ­ Civic and political participation.
3 ­ Trust in the Italian Parliament.



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4 ­ Confidence in the justice system.
5 ­ Trust in parties.
6 ­ Trust in local institutions.
7 ­ Trust in other types of institutions.
8 ­ Women and political representation in the Parliament.
9 ­ Women and political representation at the local level.

10 ­ Women in decision­making bodies.
11 ­ Women on board of listed companies.
12 ­ Median age of Italian Members of the Parliament.
13 ­ Length of civil proceedings in ordinary cognition of the first and second

degree.
Most of the domains and indicators above strictly relate with spatial
planning, for they provide a very comprehensive description of reality (and
the perception of it). Nonetheless, in a country where zoning is still formally
the main instrument of planning, we believe that the addiction of a couple of
indicators in the domain 9. LANDSCAPE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
would be helpful to give the pulse of spatial planning problems in Italy.
They are:

­ Land subject to planning (expressed as the ratio of planned surface area
on the total surface area).

­ Implementation of the planning obligations/standards (expressed as the
ratio of surface area where planning obligations/standards were
implemented on the total of the planned surface area).

We would also suggest to add two more indicators still related with spatial
planning.
1 ­ ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY MODES OF TRANSPORT (in
domain 11. QUALITY OF SERVICES), measuring the level of
walkability/cyclability of the areas. It would take the form of an index
composed by at least 6 indicators around the two variables of ‘quality walking
routes’ and ‘quality cycling routes’, both examined in terms of meters on the
total road extension, people’s perception of the quality and people usage for
their mobility and leisure.
2 ­ INDEX OF URBAN INNOVATION (in domain 10. RESEARCH AND
INNOVATION). A descriptive index of the ability of cities to evolve over time
in response to the needs of new generations, ensuring development and



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connection with the nodes of the national/global economy. The indicators
would be economic (of flux, in addition to static ones expressed in domain 3,
expressed as the percentage of GDP originating from exchanges with outside
areas), landscape (the ability to visually convey a sense of modernity while
safeguarding the historical values, expressed as the number of physical
interventions quality in the recent x years on the total) and social (perception
of the degree of modernity and connectivity of urban areas, expressed as the
percentage of people satisfied with the degree of modernity and connectivity
of where they live on the total population).



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