Poverty & Inequalities Profile - Falkirk 2010 - Falkirk Council

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Debt Breakdown on Type of clients Poverty & Inequalities Profile Falkirk 2009 Gender: Over the period and across all offices the pattern remained very similar with just over 40% of clients being female, 32.8% of clients were male, with couples making up 25.8% of all clients. Age: Around 75% of clients were aged 21-50 with roughly the same proportion in each of the age groups 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50. A further 15% were aged 51-60. There were very few aged under 20 or over 70. This age distribution of clients is not particularly surprising as debt is less common among older people and very young adults. Household type: 50% of clients lived in single person households and 20% were single parents. Both figures are significantly higher than the Council average which shows 35% of households as single persons and only 7% as single parent households. Given that almost half of all single adult households are pensioners 1 but pensioners make up only a small proportion of debt clients, this suggests that single adult households are almost three times more likely to approach debt counsellors than their representation in the population would suggest. Single parent households were also almost three times more likely to be receiving support for debt problems than others It is perhaps not surprising that non-pensioner single adults and single parents are more likely than average to have debt problems since they have only one income, whether from earnings or benefits, coming into the household. Table 24 shows the proportion of single adult households and single parents who are on low incomes compared with the average. These figures are taken from the Scottish Household Survey and refer to Scotland as a whole. Table 24: Household income by household type Household type Net annual income Single non-pensioner adult Single parent All < £10,000 30% 19% 20% £10,001-£20,000 45% 59% 34% £20,000 + 25% 22% 46% 100% 100% 100% Source: Scottish Household Survey 2007/08 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/933/0092736.xls#Table_6_1_1 This shows that these two types of households have lower incomes than average. 30% of single non-pensioner adult households have net incomes of under £10,000 compared to 20% of all households and 78% of single parents have incomes of less than £20,000 compared to 54% of all households. Economic activity: The following graph shows the economic activity of the debt clients. Looking over time, there is some evidence that there has been an increase in the proportion of clients who are unemployed. Falkirk Council clients were significantly more likely to be unable to work due to ill health and less likely to be in full time employment. Figure 8: Economic Activity of Debt Clients Retired 6% Unable to work due to ill health 23% Other 10% Unemployed 15% Economic activity of debt clients Full time employment 35% Part time employment 11% 1 Source Scottish Household Survey 2007/08 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/933/0092732.xls#Table_2_4_2
Debt Poverty & Inequalities Profile Falkirk 2009 It is difficult to find a direct comparison to these proportions, but figures from the Scottish Household Survey 2007/08 on the economic activity profile of the population aged 16+ show that: • 21% of the population were retired compared to 6% of debt clients; • 3% of the population were unemployed compared to 15% of debt clients; • 6% of the population were unable to work due to ill health compared to 23% of debt clients. Housing tenure: In spite of the high proportion of mortgage debt, only 25.6% of debt clients were owner occupiers while 47.8% rented from the Council. This compares with 67% of all households who are owner occupiers in Falkirk and 23% who are Council tenants. However, the proportion of clients who are owner occupiers increased over the period 2006-2010 from 21.3% in 2006/07 to 30.6% in 2009/10. This is almost certainly due to the increase in mortgage debt dealt with. The proportion of clients renting from other social landlords and privately is about twice the proportion within the population as a whole, although in both cases the percentage of all clients is around 7%. Perhaps not surprisingly, Falkirk Council’s clients were more likely to be Council tenants than the CABx clients, while non-householders and private rented tenants were more likely to have been dealt with by Falkirk and Grangemouth CABx. Ethnicity: 97.5% of clients were white which is in line with the likely ethnicity breakdown of the population as a whole (the most recent ethnicity figures for the Council area are from the 2001 Census which showed just over 1% of the population from an ethnic minority). However, while half the ethnic population in 2001 was Pakistani in origin, only 0.3% of all clients were Pakistani. Disability: The figures on economic activity show that a very high proportion of debt clients are unable to work due to ill health. This is reflected in the figures on disability where 38.3% of clients had some form of long term illness or disability. This compares with 16% of the working age population in the 2001 Census who had a limiting long term illness or disability. Information is also provided on the type of disability. 17.8% of debt clients had a learning disability or a mental health problem and 9.1% a physical disability. Falkirk Council clients were more likely than CABx clients to have a disability of any type. Income: As might be expected of those with debt problems, income levels of debt clients tend to be low. Figure 9 shows that almost 30% of debt clients had an income of less than £6,000 per year. 89% of all clients had an income of less than £20,000. Figure 9: Income of Debt Clients 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Income of debt clients < £6,000 £6-10,000 £10-15,000 £15-20,000 £20-25,000 £25-3,0000 £30-40,000 £40,000 + Income band
Page 1 and 2: Poverty & Inequalities Profile Falk
Page 7 and 8: Working Age Benefit Table 9: Workin
Page 9 and 10: Incapacity Benefit/Severe Disableme
Page 11 and 12: Housing in Falkirk Poverty & Inequa
Page 13 and 14: Homelessness Poverty & Inequalities
Page 15: Debt Poverty & Inequalities Profile

Poverty & Inequalities Profile - Falkirk 2010 - Falkirk Council

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