Index of Multiple Deprivation
Linked Data

Open Data Communities offers Linked Data access to the Index of Multiple Deprivation datasets from the Department of Communities and Local Government.

This provides a range of useful information covering population, income, education, health, environment and availability of key community facilities for both 2007 and 2010.

This site lets you browse and search the data and to see at a glance what data is available, but its key purpose is to make the data easily accessible for others to re-use.

Either using our RESTful HTTP API, or via SPARQL, you can access the data in a variety of formats to extract it in the way that's useful for you. We hope that people will use this in a variety of ways and combine it with information from other sources.

Visualisations

To browse the deprivation data on a map, you can use Swirrl's IMD-mapper.

If you create an application or visualisation that uses the data, please let us know - we'd be happy to link to it and/or feature it on the site.

Aims of this site

Government departments collect, collate and publish a huge variety of data sets and have traditionally done so in a fairly controlled manner. It has not always been easy to ascertain exactly what data is collected; releases have in some cases followed months of delay in order that detailed checks and/or analysis of statistics can take place; and release is generally in a limited and limiting set of formats (e.g. pdf for publications, excel spreadsheets for datasets).

A number of factors are now changing that situation:

  • The Open Data movement is acting as a catalyst for change, bringing to light the value of previously 'hidden' data and creating a real groundswell of demand for data to be 'given back' to the communities who have paid for its collection
  • The development of Linked Data, and related technologies and standards, is creating a new approach to machine readable data release that has the potential to access and associate data in ways that would previously have been practicably if not technically impossible.

  • In the context of resource prioritisation; local and central government is looking at new ways of releasing and analysing data that both reduces burden and which more effectively engages and utilises the talent pool that resides both within and outside the government sector.

 

Within this context the Department for Communities and local Government (DCLG) is looking to produce data outputs that are:

  • Trusted and authoritative
  • Actively used alongside other 3rd party DCLG and external sources
  • Can act as a catalyst for innovation and new economic opportunity

Despite only being released on the 24th March 2011 the latest Indices have already attracted interest and analysis. For example:

“along with the Census, the IMD is a key dataset for targeting services to help tackle deprivation.”

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Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion
“So, in contrast to the headlines, it seems clear that deprivation remains more firmly entrenched in the north than in the south.”

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Alasdair Rae University of Sheffield
“The Indices of Multiple Deprivation give us an amazing insight into poverty and deprivation across England.”

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Simon Rogers Guardian Datablog

Collaboration

Swirrl have worked in collaboration with DCLG to produce a 'query and retrieve' facility in which data is held in and accessible using the Cabinet Office recommended full, Linked Data standards and formats.

The aim of this collaboration is not to provide a 'fully managed service' but to test the value of publishing specific types of data to single, maintained sources, and making that data openly accessible, and easily re-usable.

We have started this work using the English Indices of Deprivation because we believe that there is strong external interest in this dataset, and so expect to find a ready-made audience of developers who, using our test API, could build tools which combine/overlay deprivation statistics and related external sources: for example in order to understand crime, education or the economy in different localities. DCLG is in this way looking to build relationships with the developer/innovator community and support local use of the Indices.

The Indices have historically been used by local authorities, other local service providers and researchers/analysts as a key contextual dataset - often utilised as a 'base layer' on which other key statistics and/or operational data can be overlaid in order to provide a generalised picture of the conditions in which a particular service is being delivered or a specific occurrence/trend is identified.