The economy of the United Kingdom is expected to fall by ** percent in the second quarter of 2020, following the Coronavirus outbreak and closure of several businesses. According to the forecast the economy will bounce back in the third quarter of 2020, based on a scenario where the lockdown lasts for three months, with social distancing gradually phased out over a subsequent three-month period.

The main aim of this work is to develop a set of high level macro economic scenarios for the medium-term (to the end of 2022) and for the long-term (to 2030) in order to inform the development of recovery strategies in London, reflecting unprecedented uncertainty on the economic outlook. The primary scenario dimensions include Effectiveness/nature of public health response and Effectiveness/impact of economic support measures. Other scenario dimensions include: Brexit and migration; International economic context; Technology and innovation; Financial climate; Political economy; Economic Geography and GHG emissions. This is an agile project - GLA Economics will continue to track actual data in order to review the assessment of the likelihood of alternative scenario outcomes. Successive updates will be released when they become available for the benefit of external stakeholders in tackling the COVID-19 crisis.

In 2020, global gross domestic product declined by 6.7 percent as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. In Latin America, overall GDP loss amounted to 8.5 percent.

The UK economy shrank by 0.1 percent in September 2025 after reporting zero growth in the previous month. Since a huge decline in GDP in April 2020, the UK economy has gradually recovered and is now slightly larger than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. After the initial recovery from the pandemic, however, the UK economy has effectively flatlined, fluctuating between low growth and small contractions since 2022. Labour banking on growth to turn around fortunes in 2025 In February 2025, just over half a year after winning the last general election, the approval rating for the new Labour government fell to a low of -48 percent. Furthermore, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer was not only less popular than the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, but also the leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, whose party have surged in opinion polls recently. This remarkable decline in popularity for the new government is, in some part, due to a deliberate policy of making tough decisions early. Arguably, the most damaging of these policies was the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners, although other factors such as a controversy about gifts and donations also hurt the government. While Labour aims to restore the UK's economic and political credibility in the long term, they will certainly hope for some good economic news sooner rather than later. Economy bounces back in 2024 after ending 2023 in recession Due to two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, in late 2023 the UK economy ended the year in recession. After not growing at all in the second quarter of 2023, UK GDP fell by 0.1 percent in the third quarter, and then by 0.3 percent in the last quarter. For the whole of 2023, the economy grew by 0.4 percent compared to 2022, and for 2024 is forecast to have grown by 1.1 percent. During the first two quarters of 2024, UK GDP grew by 0.7 percent, and 0.4 percent, with this relatively strong growth followed by zero percent growth in the third quarter of the year. Although the economy had started to grow again by the time of the 2024 general election, this was not enough to save the Conservative government at the time. Despite usually seen as the best party for handling the economy, the Conservative's economic competency was behind that of Labour on the eve of the 2024 election.

The economic landscape of the United Kingdom has been significantly shaped by the intertwined issues of Brexit, COVID-19, and their interconnected impacts. Despite the country’s robust and diverse economy, the disruptions caused by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have created uncertainty and upheaval for both businesses and individuals. Recognizing the magnitude of these challenges, academic literature has directed its attention toward conducting immediate research in this crucial area. This study sets out to investigate key economic factors that have influenced various sectors of the UK economy and have broader economic implications within the context of Brexit and COVID-19. The factors under scrutiny include the unemployment rate, GDP index, earnings, and trade. To accomplish this, a range of data analysis tools and techniques were employed, including the Box-Jenkins method, neural network modeling, Google Trend analysis, and Twitter-sentiment analysis. The analysis encompassed different periods: pre-Brexit (2011-2016), Brexit (2016-2020), the COVID-19 period, and post-Brexit (2020-2021). The findings of the analysis offer intriguing insights spanning the past decade. For instance, the unemployment rate displayed a downward trend until 2020 but experienced a spike in 2021, persisting for a six-month period. Meanwhile, total earnings per week exhibited a gradual increase over time, and the GDP index demonstrated an upward trajectory until 2020 but declined during the COVID-19 period. Notably, trade experienced the most significant decline following both Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the impact of these events exhibited variations across the UK’s four regions and twelve industries. Wales and Northern Ireland emerged as the regions most affected by Brexit and COVID-19, with industries such as accommodation, construction, and wholesale trade particularly impacted in terms of earnings and employment levels. Conversely, industries such as finance, science, and health demonstrated an increased contribution to the UK’s total GDP in the post-Brexit period, indicating some positive outcomes. It is worth highlighting that the impact of these economic factors was more pronounced on men than on women. Among all the variables analyzed, trade suffered the most severe consequences in the UK. By early 2021, the macroeconomic situation in the country was characterized by a simple dynamic: economic demand rebounded at a faster pace than supply, leading to shortages, bottlenecks, and inflation. The findings of this research carry significant value for the UK government and businesses, empowering them to adapt and innovate based on forecasts to navigate the challenges posed by Brexit and COVID-19. By doing so, they can promote long-term economic growth and effectively address the disruptions caused by these interrelated issues.

In 2024, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United Kingdom grew by 0.9 percent and is expected to grow by just one percent in 2025 and by 1.9 percent in 2026. Growth is expected to slow down to 1.8 percent in 2027, and then grow by 1.7, and 1.8 percent in 2027 and 2028 respectively. The sudden emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 and subsequent closure of large parts of the economy were the cause of the huge 9.4 percent contraction in 2020, with the economy recovering somewhat in 2021, when the economy grew by 7.6 percent. UK growth downgraded in 2025 Although the economy is still expected to grow in 2025, the one percent growth anticipated in this forecast has been halved from two percent in October 2024. Increased geopolitical uncertainty as well as the impact of American tariffs on the global economy are some of the main reasons for this mark down. The UK's inflation rate for 2025 has also been revised, with an annual rate of 3.2 percent predicated, up from 2.6 percent in the last forecast. Unemployment is also anticipated to be higher than initially thought, with the annual unemployment rate likely to be 4.5 percent instead of 4.1 percent. Long-term growth problems In the last two quarters of 2023, the UK economy shrank by 0.1 percent in Q3 and by 0.3 percent in Q4, plunging the UK into recession for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before that last recession, however, the UK economy has been struggling with weak growth. Although growth since the pandemic has been noticeably sluggish, there has been a clear long-term trend of declining growth rates. The economy has consistently been seen as one of the most important issues to people in Britain, ahead of health, immigration and the environment. Achieving strong levels of economic growth is one of the main aims of the Labour government elected in 2024, although after almost one year in power it has so far proven elusive.

The United Kingdom's economy grew by 1.1 percent in 2024, after a growth rate of 0.3 percent in 2023, 5.1 percent in 2022, 8.5 percent in 2021, and a record ten percent fall in 2020. During the provided time period, the biggest annual fall in gross domestic product before 2020 occurred in 2009, when the UK economy contracted by 4.6 percent at the height of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Before 2021, the year with the highest annual GDP growth rate was 1973, when the UK economy grew by 6.5 percent. UK economy growing but GDP per capita falling In 2022, the UK's GDP per capita amounted to approximately 37,371 pounds, with this falling to 37,028 pounds in 2023, and 36,977 pounds in 2024. While the UK economy as a whole grew during this time, the UK's population grew at a faster rate, resulting in the negative growth in GDP per capita. This suggests the UK economy's struggles with productivity are not only stagnating, but getting worse. The relatively poor economic performance of the UK in recent years has not gone unnoticed by the electorate, with the economy consistently seen as the most important issue for voters since 2022. Recent shocks to UK economy In the second quarter of 2020, the UK economy shrank by a record 20.3 percent at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was a relatively swift economic recovery initially, the economy has struggled to grow much beyond its pre-pandemic size, and was only around 3.1 percent larger in December 2024, when compared with December 2019. Although the labor market has generally been quite resilient during this time, a long twenty-month period between 2021 and 2023 saw prices rise faster than wages, and inflation surge to a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022.

This dataset pertains to a research project investigating the social, cultural, and economic consequences of COVID19 on independent arts workers, specifically in the theatre sector, across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The project recognised the unique vulnerability of this workforce in dealing with the impact of COVID19. Their workplaces closed overnight and their sector transformed as theatres moved to digital delivery, and their employment status (freelance) made them ineligible for the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The motivation of the project was to understand: the employment experiences of this workforce during the first 18 months of the pandemic; how the pandemic affected their planning for the future; how the pandemic changed their creative practices and skills; what impact government and sectoral policy had on the workforce; and to find strategies for government and industry to support this precarious workforce.

This data collection includes survey responses (n=397) to an online survey which ran from 23/11/2020 to 19/03/2021, and a database of policy events covering the period from the onset of the pandemic until 27/5/2022 (n=1353). This collection contains the survey data. The survey was run through the JISC surveys platform. It had 34 questions collecting a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data. Freeform text responses were alternated with multiple choice, multi-option and Likert scale. The survey captured data on theatre freelancers employment, emotional, and cultural experiences, the region(s) and setting(s) where they worked, and their age, gender identity, race, occupation(s).COVID-19 threatens the performing arts; closures of theatres and outlawing of public gatherings have proven financially devastating to the industry across the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. The pandemic has sparked a wide range of industry-led strategies designed to alleviate financial consequences and improve audience capture amidst social distancing. COVID-19 has affected all levels of the sector but poses an existential threat to freelancers--Independent Arts Workers (IAWs)--who make up 60% of industry workforce in the UK (EU Labour Force Survey 2017). The crisis has put a spotlight on the vulnerable working conditions, economic sustainability, mental wellbeing, and community support networks of IAWs. IAWs are often overlooked by the industry and researchers, however it is their very precarity that makes them pioneers of adaptability responsible for key innovation within the sector. IAWs may prove essential for the industry's regrowth post-COVID-19. An investigation is necessary into the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs and the wide-ranging creative solutions developing within the industry to overcome them.

There has been increasing pressure to gather 'robust, real-time data' to investigate the financial, cultural, and social potential long-term consequences of COVID-19 on the UK theatre industry. The impact of the pandemic on IAWs is particularly complex and wide-ranging. A TRG Arts survey stated that 60% of IAWs predict their income will 'more than halve in 2020' while 50% have had 100% of their work cancelled. Industry researchers from TRG Arts and Theatres Trust have launched investigations examining the financial impact of COVID-19 on commercial venues and National Portfolio Organisations, but there has been insufficient research into the consequences for IAWs (eg. actors, directors, producers, writers, theatre makers, technicians) and the smaller SMEs beyond income loss and project cancellation data. In May 2020, Vicky Featherstone of the Royal Court Theatre, stated the importance of support for the 'massive freelance and self-employed workforce' she believed has been 'taken for granted' by the industry. Our study fills this gap by capturing and analysing not only the economic impact, but the social and cultural transformations caused by COVID-19 by and for IAWs. We will compare regional responses across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as well as variations across racial and socio-economic groups. Our aims are to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 on IAWs, identify inequalities in the sector, investigate changes in the type of work produced post-COVID-19, and help develop strategies for how the sector can move forward from this crisis. We will investigate connections between the financial consequences of COVID-19 and creative strategies for industry survival including social support networks, communication initiatives between arts venues and IAWs, and the development of mixed-media work in the wake of the pandemic.

IntroductionThe post-COVID-19 phenomenon of “quiet quitting” could be problematic for UK economic growth because unpaid overtime has been a key contributor to business productivity since the 2008 global financial crisis. Here, we explore the extent to which this phenomenon exists in the UK, and whether the tendency for quiet quitting differs across generations.MethodsWe analyzed data from the UK Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) between 2007 and 2022 to determine changes in hours worked. Quiet quitting was characterized by notable declines in hours worked between 2019 and 2022, benchmarked against 20072018 trajectories. Analyses were demarcated by four commonly defined generational cohorts (i.e., Generation Z [GenZs; 1997–2004], Generation Y [Millennials; 1981–1996], Generation X [GenXers; 1965–1980], and Baby Boomers [1952–1964]).ResultsOverall, we found that the UK workforce reduced hours by ~28 h per year in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Hours lost was most notable in 2022, with hours down by ~36 h. However, in assessing generational differences, quiet quitting was most pronounced in the two younger cohorts. GenZs showed the steepest decline in hours worked, while Millennials worked the least number of hours overall, with no indication of recovery by the end of the study period. Hours declined for GenXers and Baby Boomers, but changes were more moderate, and Baby Boomers showed evidence of a possible rebound to pre-pandemic levels.DiscussionGiven the ~24,568 million UK full-time workers in 2022, our findings equate to over 55 million discretionary hours lost to the labor market per year between 2019 and 2022, 48.1% of which is accounted for by Millennials. Thus, we evidence that quiet quitting has interrupted the recovery of working hours in the UK to pre-pandemic levels, and lost hours are especially attributable to younger cohorts.JELJ24 J01.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused massive shocks to the global economy and dampened previously projected growth scenarios worldwide. According to a recent study, clothing and footwear retail was predicted to suffer a **** percent decline annually in 2020. However, with the diminishing of the impact of the pandemic, in 2021 the sector is forecast to grow by **** percent. In total terms, the retail industry is expected to grow by *** percent, as opposed to the *** percent decline in 2020. For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Fact and Figures page.

Co-working spaces have become an essential part of the digital economy but how will Covid-19 affect their growth in urban areas?

This Round 1 Innovation Fund project followed the experiences of several co-working projects through the pandemic to explore what role co-working spaces might play in new flexible, hybrid models of work.

Research questions How have co-working spaces responded to the COVID-19 crisis? How do co-working spaces stand to be incorporated into the economic recovery and urban regeneration efforts in the aftermath? Method Over 40 interviews were conducted in Brighton, Bristol and Manchester with representatives from a range of coworking spaces and of local and regional government.

Key findings The future of urban co-working spaces will be shaped by the wider dynamics of the urban property market and shifts in corporate demand for flexible workspace. These forces will likely prove more influential than anything specific to their founding organisation and social purpose. The pandemic underscored the ambivalent position of co-working spaces as hosts rather than employers and revealed the variable positions of different co-working space business models in the face of disrupted income streams. At the same time, co-working spaces have contributed to the recovery from the pandemic by providing places to work collaboratively or collectively alongside shifts towards more flexible work and working from home. In this respect their importance is likely to increase. Attention is shifting from the towering dominance of London to smaller urban hubs and especially commuting towns. Although local and national government are beginning to recognise the potential importance of co-working spaces, they have not begun to develop strategies to nurture them. This gap risks leaving co-working spaces and their users adrift in increasingly turbulent and competitive market conditions. This is especially important at a time where they stand to play a central role in providing sites for experimentation with, and adaptation to, new digitally-mediated working practices emerging from the pandemic, for a potentially much broader array of workers than spaces previously served.

The Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Dig.IT) will establish itself as an essential resource for those wanting to understand how new digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the world of work. Digitalisation is a topical feature of contemporary debate. For evangelists, technology offers new opportunities for those seeking work and increased flexibility and autonomy for those in work. More pessimistic visions, in contrast, see a future where jobs are either destroyed by robots or degraded through increasingly precarious contracts and computerised monitoring. Take Uber as an example: the company claims it is creating opportunities for self-employed entrepreneurs; while workers' groups increasingly challenge such claims through legal means to improve their rights at work.

While such positive and pessimistic scenarios abound of an increasingly fragmented, digitalised and flexible transformation of work across the globe, theoretical understanding of contemporary developments remains underdeveloped and systematic empirical analyses are lacking. We know, for example, that employers and governments are struggling to cope with and understand the pace and consequences of digital change, while individuals face new uncertainties over how to become and stay 'connected' in turbulent labour markets. Yet, we have no real understanding of what it means to be a 'connected worker' in an increasing 'connected' economy. Drawing resources from different academic fields of study, Dig.IT will provide an empirically innovative and international broad body of knowledge that will offer authoritative insights into the impact of digitalisation on the future of work.

The Dig.IT centre will be jointly led by the Universities of Sussex and Leeds, supported by leading experts from Aberdeen, Cambridge, Manchester and Monash Universities. Its core research programme will cover four broad-ranging research themes. Theme one will set the conceptual and quantitative base for the centre's activities. Theme two involves a large-scale survey of Employers' Digital Practices at Work. Theme three involves qualitative research on employers' and employees' experiences of digitalisation at work across 4 sectors (Creative industries, Business Services, Consumer Services, Public Services). Theme 4 examines how the disconnected attempt to reconnect, through Public Employment Services, the growth of new types of self-employment, platform work and workers' responses to building new forms of voice and representation in an international context. Specific projects include:

1. The Impact of Digitalisation on Work and Employment -Conceptualising digital futures, historically, regionally and internationally -Comparative regulation of digital employment

2. Mapping regional and international trends of digital technology and work

3. Employers' Digital Practices at Work Survey

4. Employers' and employees' experiences of digital work across sectors -Changing management processes and practices -Workers' experiences of digital transformation

5. Reconnecting the disconnected: new channels of voice and representation

6. displaced workers, job search and the public employment service

7. self-employment, interest representation and voice

Dig.IT will establish a Data Observatory on digital futures at work to promote our findings through an interactive website, report on a series of methodological seminars and new experimental methods and deliver extensive outreach activities. It will act as a one-platform library of resources at the forefront of research on digital work and will establish itself as a focal point for decision-makers across the policy spectrum, connecting with industrial strategy, employment and welfare policy. It will also manage an Innovation Fund designed to fund novel research ideas, from across the academic community as they emerge over the life course of the centre.

The United States has had the highest economic growth in the G7 since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its economy *** percent larger in the first quarter of 2023, when compared with the fourth quarter of 2019. By contrast, the United Kingdom and Germany have both seen their economies shrink by *** percent in the same time period.

The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Covid-19 study can be seen as a follow-up study based on the sample of the regular ELSA study (held under SN 5050). ELSA was launched in 2002 with the primary objective of exploring ageing in England through the operationalisation of a longitudinal design, where repeated measures are taken over time from the same sample of study participants, composed of people aged 50 or above.

After the beginning of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak at the end of 2019, its classification as global pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March 2020 and the gradual escalation of protective measures in the UK, culminating with the enforcement of a nation-wide lockdown in late March, the ELSA research team identified the need to carry out a new ad-hoc study that measures the socio-economic effects/psychological impact of the lockdown on the aged 50+ population of England.

Acknowledgment statement:

The ELSA COVID-19 Substudy was funded through the Economic and Social Research Council via the UK Research and Innovation Covid-19 Rapid Response call. Funding has also been received from the National Institute of Aging in the US, and a consortium of UK government departments coordinated by the National Institute for Health Research.

Further information can be found on the http://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/covid-19" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ELSA COVID-19 Study webpage.

ELSA COVID-19 study: End User Licence and Special Licence data

The main data and documentation for the ELSA COVID-19 study are available under SN 8688, subject to standard End User Licence conditions. This study (SN 8918) contains only interview week variables, which are subject to stringent Special Licence conditions. Users should obtain SN 8688 and check whether it is suitable for their needs before considering an application for this study (SN 8918).

DIC (Eq 11) for Model 2, Model 7 and Model 12 in the pre- and post-vaccine period (January 2020—January 2021).

Details on collected articles (after post-processing).

Corporate travel is closely tied to fluctuations in business confidence. Economic uncertainty, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the industry to a halt in March 2020, significantly dented revenue for agencies at the beginning of the previous five-year period in 2020-21. The industry is still adapting to the new working trends and spending strategies of corporate companies post-pandemic in 2025-26. Demand for travel services has also faced recent hurdles of high prices for flights and hotels due to steep inflation and companies’ efforts to curb their carbon emissions. Video calls are now a cemented alternative to domestic and international business travel that saves time and money for companies. Demand from the industry's largest downstream market, the banking, financial services and insurance industries, has dropped due to the relocation of many companies out of the UK to avoid the loss of passporting rights, which they lost back in 2021. Loss of major financial clients has left a lingering impression on demand for corporate travel agents. Although industry revenue is expected to grow by 7.7% in 2025-26 as businesses increase their levels of travel, revenue is anticipated to soar at a compound annual rate of 41.8% to £4.6 billion over the five years through 2025-26 after it plummeted in 2021-22 amid lockdown restrictions. Agencies have faced unsustainably high operational expenses in recent years, driving many out of the industry and constraining profits. Over the five years through 2030-31, revenue is expected to rise at a compound annual rate of 5.1% to reach £5.9 billion, which is slightly above pre-pandemic industry revenue. The industry is significantly affected by business confidence and profit, meaning the pace at which the economy recovers following sluggish economic growth and dented business confidence will likely influence industry revenue heavily over the coming years. The growing use of virtual meetings and events and the ever-growing demand for online travel agents will slow the market's full recovery. However, progress between the UK and EU regarding ease of travel will stand to benefit the corporate travel services industry in the coming years.

Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the cruise industry in the United Kingdom had to suspend its operations in March 2020. It was expected that the economic loss in direct expenditures would amount to 539 million British pounds within 60 days of the suspension, and 888 million British pounds after 90 days.

Percentage of out-of-vocabulary words.

The data collection includes interviews with key experts and responses to a survey of procurement officers. In order to gain contextual information on the practice of social procurement in England, Wales and Scotland, 33 expert interviews were conducted with a range of individuals, from commissioning organisations and their representative bodies covering local authorities, housing associations and higher education institutions; policy makers; representatives of construction contractors; framework providers; equality experts with an interest in procurement; procurement and social value consultants and legal experts; and civil society organisations, including trade unions. The interviewees included experts in Scottish, Welsh, English and UK-wide procurement and equality practice. A survey was conducted to establish the extent of the inclusion of employment equality objectives within public procurement, as well as the motivations, processes and outcomes of using social procurement. Responses were received from 109 procurement officers in local authorities, housing associations and higher education institutions, plus some others, across England, Wales and Scotland.

Around a third of all public spending is on procuring goods, works and services from the private sector. Therefore the idea of social procurement, or using public spending power to achieve additional social ends through the contracting process, is attractive to policymakers. This could include measures such as requiring a construction firm building a publicly-funded housing project to offer apprenticeships or jobs to local unemployed people. Although the idea of "buying social justice" through public procurement is encouraged by legislation, there is little research on the extent of its adoption or effectiveness, particularly for promoting equality. Therefore those involved in using public procurement to achieve additional equality objectives have little material on which to develop evidence-based policy and practice. This research will provide the first evidence of how social procurement is being adopted by public authorities specifically to advance equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in employment, including groups protected under equality law and socio-economic inequality. It will focus on the UK construction and infrastructure sector, as a key industry for post-coronavirus economic recovery and growth, contributing £413bn to GDP annually, employing 9% of the workforce. The sector is facing skills shortages, exacerbated by Brexit, which has focused attention on filling labour gaps through the recruitment of a more diverse workforce. Construction has long been a predominantly white, male industry, with a workforce of only 13% women and 6% black and minority ethnic (BME) workers, despite numerous EDI initiatives. Our previous research has shown that demanding action to improve workforce diversity through public procurement can be an effective mechanism for change, as used in the construction of London's Olympic Park where numbers of women and BME workers increased. The legal frameworks that enable public procurement to achieve 'social value' from procurement have developed differently across the UK in recent years, with stronger obligations in Scotland and Wales than in England. The research will use this opportunity to undertake a comparative analysis of the impact of the differing legislative frameworks on policy and practice on social procurement. A main objective of the research is to have an impact on practice in the use of social procurement to advance employment equality, through identifying examples of good practice and barriers to its uptake. The research will develop recommendations and a toolkit for use by those involved in social procurement for equality ends - whether as public commissioners/buyers, procurement or equality practitioners, contractors, representatives of employees or civil society - who have been consulted on the design of the project and will be involved in the development of the research and its outputs through a project advisory board. The project uses mixed methods, including a survey and case studies. A survey of public bodies in England, Wales and Scotland - local authorities, higher education institutions and housing associations - will establish the extent of policy and practice on the use of social procurement to achieve employment equality objectives. All three groups spend large amounts of public money on construction projects, and are subject to legal requirements that they should consider the social value and equality implications of such spending. Case studies will be produced to highlight good practice in the area of social procurement from the three types of public bodies in England, Wales and Scotland, as well as a national infrastructure project and two innovative transport authorities. Recommendations and a practitioner toolkit on equality and procurement will be developed with project partners, to be disseminated widely, through a practitioner conference, commissioner networks and industry communication channels including journal articles and social media.

DIC (Eq 11) of stochastic Gompertz model (M2) fit to data for Germany for various splice thresholds.