Carnegie UK

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Carnegie UK is an independent charitable foundation that works to deliver better wellbeing for people in the UK and Ireland. #CollectiveWellbeing

Promotional graphic for Carnegie UK's Tracking our collective wellbeing: launch of the Life in the UK dashboard webinar. The webinar takes place on Monday 26th January from 10-11am.

An extract from an article in Public Finance

Promotional graphic for Carnegie UK's webinar. How is life in the UK in 2025?

Join us on Tuesday 28th October, 10-11am, as we explore the latest findings from our Life in the UK index.

Hear from Susan Pinkney as she shares key findings from this year’s report, with reflections from Grace Blakeley.

Susan Pinkney and Stuart Mackinnon from Carnegie UK outside HM Treasury, London.

Attendees of Carnegie UK's Financing the Future roundtable in Belfast

Sir Lenny Henry and Richard Curtis CBE

Attendees of Carnegie UK's Financing the Future roundtable in Newcastle.

Participants of Carnegie UK's Financing the Future roundtable are having a discussion round a large table in a meeting room.

Carnegie Catalyst Award: Comic Relief. Image of Sir Lenny Henry and Richard Curtis CBE

Jospeh and Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer

Barbara and Amos Hostetter

Carol Colburn Grigor CBE

Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy

Quote from Carnegie UK's CEO, Sarah Davidson: While a thriving economy is important, our data shows that many communities face problems that won't necessarily be solved by growth alone. The devolution agenda represents a change for new institutions to do things differently. There's an opportunity for them to measure what matters to local people.

Democratic wellbeing standout stats for England from Carnegie UK's Life in the UK 2024 England report:
72% feel that they cannot influence decisions affecting the UK as a whole.
55% feel that they are unable to influence decisions at a local level.
52% have low levels of trust in the UK government.
50% have low levels of trust in MPs.
34% have low levels of trust in news media.

Key findings for England from Carnegie UK's Life in the UK 2024 England report:
Wellbeing in stagnation: Our research found no improvement in wellbeing across any of our headline measures for the people of England.
Deep inequalities: People on lower incomes, disabled people and people under the age of 55 experience the lowest levels of wellbeing.
Democratic crisis: Trust in government and politics has reached a record low, with almost three quarters of people in England feeling they have no influence over decisions that impact the UK.

Participants at Carnegie UK's Financing the Future roundtable in Glasgow

Carnegie UK's new Financing the Future discussion paper is shown on the table at Mackintosh at the Willow in Glasgow.

Sarah Davidson and Hannah Paylor from Carnegie UK with Junior Ministers Pam Cameron and Aisling Reilly.

Letter to the Financial Times reading:
"Angry voters who say that the economy doesn’t serve them well shouldn’t be dismissed by FT columnists (Opinion, December 18). Rather, commentators and policymakers need to look deeper than simple growth figures to understand if governments are meeting people’s needs. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics’ “wellbeing dashboard” shows that one in four adults struggles to manage financially while one in eight young people in the UK is not in education, employment or training. Statistics like these need to be at the heart of our political and economic debate, rather than a myopic focus on GDP alone."

Text of letter reading:

Polly Toynbee is correct that there are few quick fixes for the biggest problems facing the country (‘Labour seems to be flailing, but keep faith: Starmer’s long-term plans are both radical and sound’ 17 December 2024). But we shouldn’t delude ourselves that political leadership alone is enough to shift the dial on many of these generational challenges.
While I have critiqued the detail of Whitehall reforms announced by Keir Starmer and Pat McFadden this winter, most of us who have worked in or with Whitehall would accept the need for these institutions to work differently. Central government will not solve any grand challenges acting alone and therefore must pay proper respect to the distinctive contributions and roles of others – the devolved administrations; local government; public bodies; and the third and private sectors.

Furthermore, while people might poke fun at the language of missions and milestones, the Prime Minister and his team are right to try to paint a picture of better lives in an improved country. Since early in the 2000s, governments across the world and closer to home have been adopting so-called “wellbeing frameworks” comprising a long-term vision and ambitious cross-government outcomes for their populations. This sort of tool could help the UK Government tell a better story about our shared ambitions and plans.

Sarah Davidson
Chief Executive, Carnegie UK / Former Director General of the Scottish Government
Andrew Carnegie House, Dunfermline

Text of a Scottish Parliament motion reading: That the Parliament notes with concern that life did not improve between 2023 and 2024 for the average person in Scotland, according to Carnegie’s Life in the UK Index; notes the reported low levels of trust in politics and government, as identified by this research; calls on the Scottish Government to take action to improve the lives of disabled people and people on low incomes in Scotland to increase these groups’ wellbeing, and congratulates Carnegie UK on developing this index and pressing the case to put wellbeing measures at the heart of Scottish public policy.

Quote from Sarah Davidson, CEO, Carnegie UK: "While the restoration of power-sharing arrangements at Stormont was a step forward, there’s a long road ahead if we’re going to tackle issues such as community safety and entrenched poverty.

That’s why we’re urging the Executive to build on the vision outlined in their recent Programme for Government by delivering new legislation to enable the cross-government approach required to tackle these problems.”

Democratic wellbeing standout stats for Northern Ireland:
78% disagree that they can influence decisions affecting the UK as a whole.
69% disagree that they can influence decisions affecting Northern Ireland.
64% have low levels of trust in the UK government.
62% have low levels of trust in MPs.
58% disagree that they can influence decisions affecting their local area.

Carnegie UK's key Life in the UK findings for Northern Ireland:
•Wellbeing in stagnation: Our research found no improvement in wellbeing across any of our headline measures for the people of Northern Ireland.
• Deep inequalities: People on lower incomes, disabled people and people aged 16-34 experience the lowest levels of wellbeing.
•Opportunity to build trust: Our polling shows a small increase in trust for the Northern Ireland Executive and MLAs; however, the wider dataset reveals a widespread lack of trust in political systems.