This paper reports some initial results from a survey of poverty and social exclusion conducted in Australia in 2010. The analysis reported in this paper indicates that the deprivation methodology is capable of generating robust and plausible results about what constitutes the essentials of life, which can then be used to examine the nature of social disadvantage in Australia and who is most affected by it.

In June 2010 the European Union adopted its first anti-poverty target and radically changed its poverty measurement methodology. These changes have significant implications for the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom project, which are considered in this paper.

The aim of this paper is to provide the rationale for the aspects of work that need to be covered, and to identify suitable questions for the main PSE survey to gather the required data. Where possible, it will look to build on questions and instruments that have been used in previous surveys, and to use standardised definitions where these exist. When looking at paid work, data from two large surveys on employment quality are analysed to assess the suitability of various indicators.

This paper aims to provide a critical review of the children’s items used in the PSE 1999 survey and to provide suggestions for improvements in the current survey. Two lists of deprivation items (short and long) are presented for consideration, along with an analysis of items according to the age of children and recommendations about which age groups items are relevant for. The paper is written for people who are familiar with the socially perceived necessities method.

This paper discusses indicators to housing and the living environment, Domain 10 of the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix (BSEM), for use in the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey. Indicators that capture the relationship between poverty and housing must give a good picture of the following main areas: the physical quality of housing; the degree of (over)crowdedness; the suitability for the specific needs of the household; the security of tenure and the affordability of housing.

This paper discusses indicators relating to Domain 4 (‘Cultural Resources’) and Domain 7 (‘Cultural Participation’) of the revised Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix (BSEM) for use in the current Poverty and Social Exclusion survey. In the BSEM, education is treated as a resource as well as an aspect of cultural participation. Questions in the PSE survey therefore need to cover both the educational resources (human capital) of the adults in the survey, i.e. their educational background, and the educational resources currently received by children.

This paper presents indicators relating to public and private services, focusing particularly on services relating to health, services for specific groups such as elderly, disabled and young people and public transport. Although many such services are ostensibly ‘universal’, both the quality and the quantity of services are typically lower in poor areas, and families in poverty may face additional barriers when accessing services.

This paper discusses both poverty and social exclusion as they have been configured, measured and ‘packaged’ in EU policy discourse and practice, and looks at both the content of policy and developments in relation to measurement and monitoring. It finds that the EU has been quietly redefining the measurement of poverty and putting a substance on the more neophyte ‘social exclusion’ as a ‘problem’ for social policy.