HomeIndependent Commission on Neighbourhoods: Hyper-local Need measure
Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON)
The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (ICON) was launched in September 2024 to review the current state of neighbourhoods across England. This work includes analysing how neighbourhoods impact residents’ lives, exploring the case for neighbourhood-focused policy interventions, and evaluating existing local initiatives using international and domestic evidence to analyse how we can better support “left behind communities”.
Assessing the current state of England’s neighbourhoods: A new measure of Hyper-Local Need
ICON partnered with the Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI) to develop the Hyper-Local Need Measure (HLNM). This new measure provides a snapshot of the condition of different neighbourhoods against five different types of need, each reflecting the main benchmarks of success that sit beneath the government’s five missions:
Economic growth: This domain reflects the economic conditions of different neighbourhoods, and includes, for instance, levels of worklessness, access to high quality jobs including in high-growth industries, levels of labour productivity, and skills.
Opportunity: This domain reflects the extent that different neighbourhoods experience child poverty, deprivation affecting children and young people; limited access to childcare services; low educational attainment in Key Stages 2 and 4, as well as the general quality of local schools.
Health: This domain reflects the quality of neighbourhood health and health services, including the prevalence of disability and adult social care need; life expectancy and mortality rates; ill health; and levels of access to health services.
Crime: This domain reflects the extent that different neighbourhoods experience high levels of crime, and includes violent crime, burglary, theft and criminal damage.
Energy: This domain reflects the extent that energy is a barrier to progress across different neighbourhoods, and includes the proportion of households in fuel poverty; dwellings with low energy efficiency; as well as a carbon footprint measurement.
ICON has been set up to provide advice to government and others on neighbourhoods policy. The commission aimed to identify “what do we know about how different socio-economic needs cluster and interact at the neighbourhood level?”. ICON produced a technical creating a ‘Hyper-local Need measure’ that attempts to demonstrate the ways in which complex and multiple social and economic disadvantages cluster in particular communities around the country.
This measure has been created based on an evidence review that was centred around datasets that relate to the achievement of the new government’s five mission objectives. These are:
Kickstart economic growth
to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.
Make Britain a clean energy superpower
to cut bills, create jobs and deliver security with cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero.
Take back our streets
by halving serious violent crime and raising confidence in the police and criminal justice system to its highest levels.
Break down barriers to opportunity
by reforming our childcare and education systems, to make sure there is no class ceiling on the ambitions of young people in Britain.
Build an NHS fit for the future
that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer.
Using this new measure, ICON reports that analysis shows:
The data below shows 'scores' and 'ranks' to deem how critical a neighbourhood needs intervention.
Score (where higher score = higher need)
Rank (where 1 = highest need)
The data is also classed into 3 'neighbourhood typologies': 'Mission Support (gray), Mission Priority (blue), and Mission Critical(orange)'- Mission Critical representing neighbourhoods that have the highest relative need and therefore will require more comprehensive support whilst Mission Support neighbourhoods represent those with the strongest starting point and therefore may need different support to build on existing neighbourhood assets.
The map to the right shows the concentration of the 3 neighbourhood typologies across the North East.
The report shows that hyper-local need in the North East is concentrated mainly in major urban centres such as Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, with additional pressure found in coastal towns including South Shields, Tynemouth, Blyth and Ashington.
Mission-critical challenges in the region stem from a combination of entrenched economic weakness, high worklessness, low-quality jobs and poor job access, which place the North East among the areas with the greatest economic-growth need. The North East also face significant energy-efficiency and fuel-poverty issues, making the clean-energy mission particularly relevant. Crime deprivation is pronounced in Sunderland where crime rates are notably high.
Health pressures also drive mission-critical need, with Northumberland, County Durham, South Tyneside and identified as having high levels of disability, poor general health and limited access to services. Together, these overlapping economic, social and health-related challenges explain why the North East registers some of the highest levels of combined mission-critical need in the country.
The North East region records a significantly higher overall Hypermeasure score than the national average, reflecting elevated need across all five policy missions.
Sunderland and County Durham show particularly high composite scores, indicating concentrated deprivation across multiple dimensions.
Every local authority in the region scores above the Rest of England baseline, underscoring the region’s socio-economic challenges.
Scores for this dimension show a mixed picture across the North East:
Northumberland and County Durham record higher need due to a combination of older housing stock, fuel poverty, and energy inefficiency.
Urban authorities such as Newcastle and North Tyneside perform relatively better, suggesting more progress in energy transition and sustainable infrastructure.
Crime-related need is comparatively high in Sunderland, South Tyneside, and Newcastle, where rates of serious violent crime and community safety concerns remain above average.
The region as a whole scores above the rest of England average, reflecting ongoing challenges in public safety, policing, and community resilience.
This dimension records some of the highest scores in the region, with County Durham in particular showing substantial need.
Key drivers include high disability rates, chronic health conditions, and pressures on primary care access.
Health inequalities across the region remain stark compared to the national average, reinforcing the importance of integrated health and social care interventions.
Using this data ICON have revealed a set of 613 neighbourhoods across England where the government is furthest behind on its missions. These have been called the mission critical neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods make up approximiately one milllion residents called the mission million.
Whilst these neighbourhoods exist across England, 76% are in the North of England and post-industrial towns and coastal communities are disproporationately reporsented. Below are some key statistical trends seen in the mission critical neighbourhoods:
Higher levels of economic inactivity
50% of adults in mission critical neighbourhoods are economically inactive, compared to 39% elsewhere.
Higher welfare spending
Welfare spending in mission critical neighbourhoods is on average 2.5 times higher per person than the average across England.
Worse health outcomes
26% of people have a limiting long-term illness compared to 17% in all other neighbourhoods. Male life expectancy is 6 years lower and female life expectancy is 5 years lower than other neighbourhoods in England.
Lower productivity
Gross Value Added (GVA) per working age person is 40% lower than all other neighbourhoods in England. This accounts for £4.5bn a year of lost GVA across England.
North East hypermeasure scores & ranks
32.1
North East Combined Authority area average score
21.9
Rest of England score
12.1
North East Combined Authority area average rank
17.1
Rest of England average rank
Top 10 neighbourhoods in each Local Authority
Newcastle upon Tyne
County Durham
Gateshead
North Tyneside
Northumberland
South Tyneside
Sunderland
Top 10 Neighbourhoods in the North East
North East
Mission's in relation to the North East
Kickstart Economic Growth
Economic growth challenges are most severe in Northern cities, including Newcastle and Sunderland. These areas show high levels of worklessness & low-income employment. They are identified as hotspots (top 20%) in the “Kickstart Economic Growth” dimension.
Take Back Our Streets
Sunderland is explicitly listed as high-crime Local Authority with significant need on this measure. Crime deprivation (crimes per 1,000 residents) is particularly acute in this area compared to national averages.
Break Down Barriers to Opportunity
Pockets of need appear in rural Northumberland relating to limited access to education and early years learning. Urban deprivation dominates, but isolated rural challenges persist.
Build an NHS Fit for the Future
The highest NHS-related need levels are found in Northumberland, County Durham & South Tyneside. Drivers include high disability prevalence, aging populations, and social care access limitations.
Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower
Newcastle and Sunderland show relatively high energy need scores, linked to fuel poverty and inefficient housing stock.
Neighbourhood-Level Patterns of Need
The maps below shows how neighbourhood-level need varies across the area using three distinct typologies.
Mission Critical neighbourhoods, shown in orange, represent places with the highest relative levels of need, where challenges across jobs, health, safety, education and living costs overlap and more comprehensive, place-based support is likely to be required. Mission Priority neighbourhoods, shown in blue, face elevated need but with greater underlying strengths or capacity, meaning targeted interventions can help prevent conditions from worsening. Mission Support neighbourhoods, shown in grey, have the strongest starting position and may require a different approach focused on building on existing assets rather than intensive intervention. Together, the typologies highlight how need is unevenly distributed, often concentrated in small, specific communities rather than evenly spread across whole towns or districts.
Sunderland
In Sunderland, places like Town End Farm and North Murton & Parkside show the overlap of economic vulnerability, higher crime pressures and poorer health outcomes that characterise many of the region’s mission-critical neighbourhoods. In coastal communities such as Newbiggin, Blyth Town and Easington & Hawthorn, deprivation also prevalent.
Bishop Auckland
County Durham’s clusters around Bishop Auckland, Coundon, Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor & Ferryhill illustrate how need is spread across dispersed towns rather than concentrated in a single centre. These communities share challenges around lower skills, access to services and declining high streets, combined with health inequalities.
Blyth
The map around Blyth Town, Ashington and Newbiggin highlights a cluster of coastal and former coalfield communities where multiple forms of disadvantage overlap. Ashington and Newbiggin reflect long-term impacts of industrial decline, with weaker labour markets, lower incomes and higher rates of ill health. Blyth Town shows a similar pattern, intensified by housing quality standards and high energy costs that make households more vulnerable.
Newcastle & Gateshead
In Newcastle and North Tyneside, the map shows a different pattern: dense urban clusters such as Benwell, Byker & Walker and Percy Main. These neighbourhoods experience high levels of economic insecurity and pressures on health, housing quality and community safety, reflecting a complex mix of inner-city deprivation.
