Addressing educational disadvantage in deprived communities: evidence from the New Deal for Communities Programme in England

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) Programme is one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010, 39 NDC Partnerships were charged with improving conditions in relation to six outcomes within deprived neighbourhoods, each accommodating around 9800 people. This paper outlines the approaches taken by NDCs to improve educational outcomes. Change is explored within three themes: change within NDC areas; change relative to other benchmarks; and modelling change. Education saw the least change of all six outcomes adopted by the NDC Programme. Unique to this outcome, spending more on education was associated with less change. Spend may have been better directed at supporting younger children and their parents combined with targeted out of school programmes of support for specific NDC cohorts.