Fraser Focus on low-income households: Introduction

FAI economists Hannah Randolph and Josh Hampson are joined by Professor Glen Bramley of Heriot-Watt University and Eli Harji of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations to discuss issues in the housing market and how they relate to low-income households. The episode discusses how economists see the housing and rental markets, how affordability is measured, how housing policy and issues have changed over the last fifty years, and the role of social housing in reducing costs and linking to other services for social renters.

In the first topical episode of our Fraser Focus series on low-income households, Ben, Chirsty, and Hannah are joined by several guests to discuss the cost of living. We discuss how economists measure changes in the cost of living through price indices, how the Minimum Income Standard captures the minimum needed to participate in society, and different policy options for supporting households with the cost of living.

FAI economist Hannah Randolph is joined by Director Mairi Spowage and Jack Evans, a senior policy advisor for JRF in Scotland, to discuss new research on the labour market in Scotland. We discuss how many people potentially want to work across local authorities and regions in Scotland, as well as why we chose to create a measure of who wants to work rather than a traditional unemployment figure. We also talk about how issues with survey data pose a practical challenge for local authorities as they design local employability and poverty policy and services.

Ben Cooper is joined by Dr Markus Gehrsitz and Dr Sam Grant to talk about their latest research on post-release supervision of offenders and it's impact on reducing reoffending in the UK.

In the final episode of our election analysis series, Mairi Spowage and João Sousa of the Fraser of Allander Institute and Ed Poole and Guto Ifan of the Wales Governance Centre come together to discuss what the results of the elections in Wales and Scotland mean for governing arrangements, and what the next steps are in the Senedd and Scottish Parliament sessions.