Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg
The last Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) was published in 2019. As set out in our index update blog last year, an updated index will be published in late 2025 or early 2026. We are aiming for late 2025 and currently refer to the planned update as WIMD 2025.
Individual indicators underlying WIMD are the building blocks for the whole index and following a review of available data we propose to update most indicators and potentially add some new ones for WIMD 2025.
We have published a report on proposed indicators for WIMD 2025, alongside a series of questions on SmartSurvey seeking user views. We also want to know which of our outputs (reports, datasets and other analytical tools) were the most useful for our last index, and what outputs you would like to see for WIMD 2025.
This survey is open to all individuals and organisations and begins on 11 November 2024, closing on 16 December 2024. We plan to publish a summary of responses received to this survey in spring 2025.
Webinars (online seminars) will be held on 20 November 2024 and 3 December 2024. The webinars will include a presentation on proposals for all indicators together with an opportunity to ask questions. Please visit the WIMD website to register.
What is WIMD?
WIMD is the Welsh Government’s official measure of relative deprivation for small areas in Wales. It is designed to identify those small areas where there are the highest concentrations of several different types of deprivation. WIMD is currently made up of eight separate domains (or types) of deprivation, each compiled from a range of different indicators. An area is multiply deprived if, for more than one of these domains, the area has a concentration of people experiencing that type of deprivation:
- income
- employment
- health
- education
- access to services
- community safety
- physical environment
- housing
Knowing how deprivation is distributed across Wales is important for many organisations when developing area-based policies, programmes and funding. WIMD can be used (often alongside other information) to inform these decisions and give a greater understanding of deprivation patterns within Wales. WIMD is also widely used as a research tool for analysis of inequality of outcomes, most commonly by analysing other datasets including location by decile or quintile of area deprivation.
Development of proposals
To explore and quality assure indicators for WIMD 2025, we have established seven separate domain groups, with income and employment grouped together. Each domain group includes analytical experts from the Welsh Government, local authorities, other public bodies (e.g. Natural Resources Wales, Public Health Wales) and academics along with policy representatives from the Welsh Government where appropriate.
Each group reviewed the WIMD 2019 indicators for the domain and potential new data sources. The domain groups have considered whether proposed indicators meet a list of indicator criteria: in summary WIMD indicator data need to be robust at small area level and cover the whole of Wales. Ideally indicators should directly measure a form of deprivation that affects a reasonable number of people and should be regularly updateable.
Since the lead-up to the last index in 2019, there has been significant change to the context and data sources for a small area measure of deprivation in Wales. Our review of indicators considers the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on data availability and trends, as well as changes to the policy landscape which underpins certain indicators, such as the rollout of Universal Credit and the new Curriculum for Wales.
Elsewhere, data developments including new Census 2021 data have led us to propose improvements or additions to WIMD for 2025. Some of the proposals describe on-going work to explore the suitability of potential indicators for WIMD 2025, rather than fully formed indicator descriptions, at this stage.
We welcome responses to some or all of the questions in the survey. We would value feedback on how well you think our new proposals would capture deprivation relevant to the specific domain, and any evidence in support of this. We are interested to know where indicators may have wider potential uses, and what those might be. We also want to identify areas of weakness to improve on for WIMD 2025 or future indices.
Join our distribution list
There will be further updates as we move towards the new index. If you want to receive notification of new information about WIMD, please email stats.inclusion@gov.wales to subscribe
Nia Jones
Social Justice Statistics
Email: stats.inclusion@gov.wales