In deciding whether an area should be classified as deprived the
government should consider the number of children in the area who
are on the child protection register.
This is one of the suggestions the government received during the
first stage of its consultation into updating the Indices of
Deprivation 2000. The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, part of the
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, received more than 200
responses.
Other suggestions included measuring suicide and attempted suicide
rates, health difficulties of new asylum seekers and the number of
emergency admissions of older people into hospital. Several
respondents supported the inclusion of using health data from the
Census, such as those suffering long-term illness.
The deadline for comments is 14 November.
www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/indices.asp
