How often have you thought “I saw that figure, or stat, or chart somewhere and I can’t remember where I saw it” and then when you do track them down, you’re not sure whether they are reliable or event up to date? The Democracy Collaborative’s new publication, UK Index of Systemic Trends aims to solve at least some of that issue, by bringing together stacks of useful data and indicators that detail and describe the systematic break down and long term political-economic failure in the UK.
North east-based Democracy Collaborative fellow Ben Sellers says: “As the preface to the Index says: ‘It is intended as a corrective to overly narrow and short-term-oriented policy discussions in Westminster that continually miss the big picture of Britain’s longstanding decline by getting lost in the weeds of the latest policy relaunch, think tank report, or shallow political fad’.
“In addition, by bringing all of this information under one roof – what amounts to a litany of economic failure – the report asks some serious questions about where we go from here. How can we build genuine political and economic democracy into the ‘next system’?”
The Democracy Collaborative’s UK version of its Index of Systemic Trends was officially launched on 5 June 2026 at Northumbria University, Newcastle. The collaborative is a think-do-tank and research laboratory for the democratic economy and the originator of the community wealth building economic development model.
At the launch, speaking alongside Index authors Prof Howard Reed and Neil McInroy, was social activist and director of the north east lobbying group One Million Women and Girls, Sally Young and the climate organiser and co-director of the Working Class Climate Alliance Sasha Josette. The launch event was hosted in collaboration with Northumbria University’s new Centre for Health & Social Equity (CHASE) and was chaired by CHASE coordinator Prof Matthew Johnson.
The Index reveals that while someone living in London enjoys a local economy the equivalent of Switzerland, residents of the Humber and Yorkshire regions enjoy the equivalent of a country like Lithuania. The UK Index of Systemic Trends is a dashboard charting the health of Britain’s political economy across indicators including economic growth, inequality, poverty, financialisation, life expectancy, productivity, environmental degradation and trust in government.
Stark findings of a failing economic system
Its stark findings shows that Britain’s economic growth is neither likely, nor sufficient for the challenges the future presents. Some of these findings include: –
- Britain has experienced a significant decline in economic growth since the 1970s (from 2015 to 2024, average growth was just 0.8% per capita).
- Child poverty is on the rise (in 2023, 30.5% of children lived in poverty – a 122.6% increase from 1970).
- Housing costs are at their highest in 50 years (in 2023, private renters paid around 28.1% of their income on housing – a 198.9% rise since 1970).
- Investment is rapidly declining (in 2024, total public and private investment amounted to around 17.4% of GDP, a 34.1% decline from 1976).
The Democracy Collaborative president Joe Guinan said: “We are pleased to be launching our Index in Newcastle, far from the corridors of Westminster and Whitehall, in a community and region living the consequences of systemic breakdown and long-term political-economic failure. One of the takeaways from the data is that there is no unified UK-wide story anymore – people live in the equivalent of very different countries and we need to acknowledge that and act accordingly.”
The Index really needs to be read and studied by anyone with an interest in the UK’s spiralling levels of inequalities. Its diagnostics and solutions certainly speak to current challenges and explain the background to the breakdown of trust in political institutions and politicians we currently see across the country. Unlike many other ‘state of the nation reports’ though, the Index does not shy away from advancing radical solutions, in fact it positively advocates for them.
The report concludes by stating: “Everybody knows that the dominant economic model of the past forty years is failing, with privatised infrastructure crumbling, household debt rising and public services at breaking point, whilst wages stagnate after two lost decades and yet another looming ahead.”
Lamenting the lack of will to tackle underlying problems shown by all political leaders in the 2024 general election campaign, the Index quotes the Fairness Foundation who anticipated that, “Britain will become more unfair and unequal over the next five years, with growing inequality in health, housing, poverty and the north-south income divide.” The report says that as a country we are already well on the way toward such a dismal outcome. “A healthy democratic politics ought to involve some collective soul-searching as to the causes of such profound national malaise. And yet, mainstream politics offers few palliatives for the ubiquitous sense of atrophy and decay,” it states.
The authors of the Index of Systemic Trends single out the current political establishment for criticism. “The leaders of the present government insist that not much can be done in the short term because – in the constant refrain of Labour’s front bench – “the money isn’t there.” Little wonder that the public’s faith in politics and politicians now stands at an all-time low,” they say.
Highlighting that, following the financial crisis, austerity, the pandemic and the recent severe contraction in living standards, they conclude that Britain is deep in a multi-dimensional crisis – economic, social, ecological, and political. At times, the report makes for bleak reading for anyone concerned about the social and economic health and prospects of the people living in the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future.
A democratic revolution in British politics is needed
However, there is hope in that the Index firmly pins the blame for this malaise on a systemic crisis that is traceable back to the UK’s dominant economic model. “It is the economic model itself that is failing the vast majority,” the report concludes. “Change in the long-running trends documented in this Index will only come with significant departures from the core tenets of that economic model – especially privatisation and financialisation – which are themselves driving many of the outcomes we are seeing in terms of economic extraction, upwards redistribution, and growing and deepening inequality,” the report says.
The Democracy Collaborative is calling for nothing less than something approaching a democratic revolution in British politics. “Only such an upheaval would be capable of sweeping away a political class that is itself deeply complicit in the policies that have produced longstanding decline for decade after decade,” its excellent report concludes.
Community wealth building an answer
A key part of the solution to the nation’s ills, according to The Democracy Collaborative is the concept of community wealth building, an approach to economic development that transforms local economies based on communities having direct ownership and control of their assets. This also challenges the failing economic development approaches that have been widely accepted for too long and addresses wealth inequality at its core. It is a method for making local economies more just, equal, and socially and ecologically sustainable.
The aim of community wealth building is to change the nature and operations of the local economy so that it produces better outcomes as a matter of course, working in the service of people, place and planet. The report’s authors claim that “community wealth building is an action-oriented approach designed for those not satisfied with tinkering around the edges and those who are ready to directly confront and address systemic economic injustices.”
Read the newly launched UK Index of Systemic Trends for more on community wealth building, but also for a systematic take-down of the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the UK’s politics for more than four decades. The Index diagnoses a system in crisis, which can only be addressed by radical and systemic change to the economic and political structures that have led us to this point. It is an essential read.
Click here to download the UK Index of Systemic Trends.
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