Jane Hutt, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip
This morning, the Welsh Government published the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025. WIMD is the official measure of relative deprivation for 1,917 small areas in Wales. It identifies areas with the highest concentrations of several different types of deprivation and is used to inform policymaking, allocation of resources, and services for local areas.
Being deprived does not just mean being poor, it can also mean having fewer resources and opportunities than we might expect in our society, for example in terms of health or education. WIMD is made up of 8 separate domains (or types) of deprivation - income, employment, health, education, access to services, housing, physical environment and community safety - each compiled from a range of different indicators.
The distribution of deprivation across Wales is important when developing area-based policies, programmes and funding. WIMD can be used to inform these decisions and give a greater understanding of deprivation trends within Wales including identifying the most deprived small areas.
WIMD 2025 shows that:
- the overall picture is similar to that of WIMD 2019, with pockets of high relative deprivation in the South Wales cities and valleys, various coastal towns, and some towns in North East Wales.
- deprivation is dispersed across Wales: all but one of the 22 local authorities contain at least one of the most deprived 10% of areas in Wales.
- analysis of deep-rooted deprivation looks at areas that have remained in the top 50 most deprived for all WIMD iterations in the past 20 years: there are 22 small areas in deep-rooted deprivation, spread across 10 local authorities.
Guidance on how to use WIMD appropriately has also been published on the Welsh Government website.
The Welsh Government are fully committed to tackling poverty and improving outcomes for people in Wales as an absolute priority, including those in the most deprived communities. WIMD 2025 will help in ensuring that support can be targeted to these communities that need it most.
We have invested over £7bn between 2022 and 2026 to support households across Wales through programmes to alleviate financial pressures, help maximise income and to help keep more money in their pockets.
Our employability programmes help people gain transferable skills which increase their long-term employability. Programmes also help integrate disadvantaged groups into the workforce, address skills shortages and facilitate direct job creation.
As the cost of living remains high, many families continue to experience difficulties in paying for household essentials. We are providing a Baby Bundle on a targeted geographical basis that will help to reduce the financial pressure families face in some of the most deprived areas of Wales.
Our Child Poverty Strategy for Wales sets out the actions we have been taking and outlines how we are working across Government and with partners to maximise the impact of the levers available to us to tackle child poverty. The strategy looks beyond just income as it aims to ensure that children living in deprived circumstances have the same access to services, opportunities and rights as others. We will be publishing a progress report in early December which will set out the actions which have been undertaken since the last update in 2022 to respond to the objectives and commitments of the strategy.
The challenge of breaking the cycle of poverty is not one we can solve overnight. The Welsh Government is using all devolved levers available to tackle poverty, but many of the most powerful tools — especially around welfare, taxation, and wage policy — remain reserved to the UK Government.
We are pleased the Chancellor has listened to our call in relation to welfare reform to scrap the Two-Child Limit, which will help to tackle the scourge of child poverty. According to the UK Government, the announcement will bring relief to 69,000 children in Wales who have previously been denied financial support from the UK benefits system.
The publication of WIMD 2025 will ensure our efforts remain focused on where we can make the greatest difference, helping to build a fairer and more equal Wales for all.