§ Mr. Formanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when the research programme into deprivation will he finished; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Patrick JenkinThe programme of research into the possibility of a cycle of deprivation, financed by my Department and managed by the Social Science Research Council, was started in 1974 and is due to end early next year. The programme has included a considerable number of substantial research projects in various social policy areas. It is expected that the programme as a whole will make an important contribution to understanding of the causes of some forms of deprivation, and of some of the ways by which such deprivation may have been transmitted from one generation to another.
The Social Science Research Council has arranged for individual reports on several of the major research projects to be published by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. as part of a special series under the title "Studies in Deprivation and Disadvantage". The first volume, a survey of existing research findings, was published in 1976 and the second report in this series, incorporating entirely new empirical material, was published on 23 March this year. Where the reports on research projects are not suitable for publication as individual volumes, accounts of them will be included in summary publications in the same series, and the originals will be lodged in the British Library (Lending Division).
A report summarising the research programme as a whole is in preparation. It, too, is expected to be published in due course by Heinemann.