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The charity sector is, like, really London-centric

It's hardly surprising to learn that the charity sector in England is incredibly focused on London but looking at Charity Commission…

Mapping the locations of every charity in England using publicly available data.

It’s hardly surprising to learn that the Charity sector in England is incredibly focused on London but looking at Charity Commission details of around 140,000 currently registered charities in England revealed the extent of that clustering was far greater than I imagined.

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This is the result of my first deep dive into a large dataset since I started learning data analysis with the Python language. As such it is incomplete and quite possibly flawed. What I’m saying is, please please, review the original data before you take any action based on it!

The chart on the left, shows just how stark the gravitational pull of London is. The dots of other activity represent obvious large urban centres like Manchester and Liverpool, but also surprisingly there are significant spots at Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham and Newcastle for reasons that are not immediately obvious to me.

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Whichever way you look, the South dominates

The heatmap doesn’t tell the whole picture. When we look at the the number of charities in any given region it’s the South East that comes out on top but we still see a stark divide between the South and East and the rest of the country. When we look at the number of charities compared to the area of each region, London once again dominates, almost completely whiting out the rest of the map. Finally, when we look at the number of charities compared the population of each region, it is the South-West that dominates but once again the contrast between the South and East, and Midlands and North is stark.

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Outside of London urban centres draw charities

Somewhat predictably, even within individual regions, charities are registered mainly where there are large numbers of people. While this is to be expected and almost certainly overlays with concentrations of other activities, there do appear to be relative deserts outside of those areas, leaving those in rural areas potentially underserved by charitable services.

Changes over time

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The Charities Act 1960 saw the introduction of a charity register hence the large number of registrations in the decade to 1970 and from the 1970s onward every decade has seen a rise in the number of new charities compared to the last. This is not particularly surprising given that the data is based on charities currently registered as active.

The differences between the regions have remained largely static with a slight widening of the gap between the Midlands and North, and the South. The exception is London which has seen a significant increase of its share since the 1990s as highlighted on the chart.

I’m not in a position to present a detailed answer as to why these two trends might have come about, but the charity sector is not immune to the trend of skilled and graduate-level jobs gravitating towards London and this could be a vicious cycle whereby charities feel that they have to be in the South to attract the best talent, drawing more talent to London and so-on. The general increase in new charities could be down to increased need, increased philanthropy, or some more mundane factor like more funding opportunities only being available to registered charities.

Beneficiaries, sectors and services don’t vary much by region

I was surprised to see that there are no big differences in the distribution of sectors that charities operate in across the different regions, beyond a slight over-representation religious and poverty focused charities in London. Given the differing needs across the country, and what I assume is a concentration of charities in London who’s work is nationally and internationally focussed, I expected there to be greater distribution.

The beneficiaries across regions are perhaps even more uniform than the sectors, with the exception of London which has more charities working with specific ethnicity, which is unsurprising given the cities metropolitan nature.

Types of service offered vary a little more but are still pretty uniform with the notable exceptions of the North East which has fewer charities offering grants and London which has fewer charities operating physical spaces but has more charities offering advocacy and advice, and doing research, perhaps reflecting the greater professionalisation of charities in the capital.

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Every part of the charity sector is growing

With few exceptions every sector, beneficiary and service group has increased its rate of growth since the 1970s. The largest groups have tended to get larger at a faster rate. There are a few exceptions such as the increased growth of charities in the recreation sector and those providing advocacy.

Overall, the picture is of a charitable sector where the larger groups continue to grow fastest and the less well represented groups like those focused on animals, helping specific ethnic groups, or performing research have grown much slower and now make up a much smaller part of the sector than they have in previous decades.

The charity sector seems pretty static

There could be a ton of factors that aren’t captured in this data but this dataset includes every currently operating charity in England and what they’re telling the Charity Commission they’re working on, so the picture it presents is worth paying attention to.

And that picture is of a sector that is not representative of the shape or needs of the country. It is heavily-based around London and doesn’t adapt its actions around the country to the distinct needs of the place it operates in. Its sectors, its beneficiaries and its activities aren’t changing as the challenges change. Inequality is increasing around the UK but poverty focused charities are not increasing their representation in the sector. We’re more aware than ever of issues of race and ethnicity, and how challenges affecting different groups can be unique to that group, yet charities focused on specific ethnic groups are still dramatically under-represented.

My own experience of the sector is of one that congratulates itself on trying to do the right thing but falls back on old tactics, doesn’t question assumptions and is averse to risk. As the sector becomes increasingly professionalised, it’s gravitating towards people with professional skills who have ability but not experience – myself included.

My experience matches the picture presented by this data but I don’t think we can draw any strong conclusions from it, but perhaps others who’ve spent more time looking at the sector as a whole can combine it with other findings to give a clearer idea of why we’re seeing such a bleak picture.

I’d love to hear from people about their impressions of this work, criticisms of my amateurish analysis, or just any additional insights. You can find me on Twitter @willhoyles or email me at [email protected] and read the full notebook on GitHub.


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