Resolver Insight Report: The North–South Divide
Introduction
The recent general election has turned many of the traditional assumptions about the United Kingdom upside down. It has also highlighted the disparity that many people feel exists in the quality of services available to them in their local communities.
With more than five million cases and three million users, Resolver is uniquely placed to provide insight on the issues that matter most to people around the UK. Resolver wanted to see if its data demonstrated a North–South divide that aligned with traditional assumptions and, if so, what challenges that would pose for the Government in the years ahead.
Much has been made of the political will to ‘level up’ communities around the UK, with everyone treated equally and the same opportunities and infrastructure available to all. Resolver’s report shows that there are clear differences in the issues that are affecting both people's lives and the functionality of the services they rely upon. These are issues that will need to be addressed through policy and investment if the Government’s ambitions are to be achieved.
Defining the North and South
For this report, Resolver has used the traditional boundaries of North-West and North-East, contrasted with South-West and South-East including London. Scotland is included separately. The report does not include the Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The data
This report samples more than half a million cases from people in the North, South and Scotland.
Resolver considered four sectors and took the top five ‘most complained about’ issues where there was a notable difference in what people in the North, South and Scotland were likely to complain about. These sectors are:
- Energy – gas, electricity, service providers
- Travel – bus, coach, train and plane
- Telecommunications – mobile, broadband, service providers
- Water.
Water has been included as a control group because most people have no choice about which service provider supplies their area.
In this report, data analysis is focused on broad categories. When Resolver’s users make a complaint, they are asked to select a category that best represents the issue they are having with the business. It’s worth noting that Resolver’s technology allows for much more detailed conclusions to be drawn about key trends, patterns and emerging issues than the straightforward problems covered in this report. Resolver helps people with more than 120 different products and sectors through its website.
A detailed methodology is shown at the end of the report. However, in summary, Resolver looked at each of the individual constituencies in the UK and the latest population data. The proportion of each constituency that had made complaints to Resolver about specific issues was determined, and the totals then combined.
The tables in this report give the percentage difference between the North/Scotland and the South. They also show the number of complaints used in calculating this figure.
North and South data
This analysis designates constituencies within the geographical regions of North West, North-East and Yorkshire & the Humber as North, while South covers the geographical regions of South-East, London, Eastern and South-West.
Energy
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | Debt related problem | 48% | 1693 |
| Energy | Multiple complaints | 47% | 7935 |
| Energy | Customer Service Issue | 31% | 4047 |
| Energy | Direct debit problem | 30% | 365 |
| Energy | Smart meter issue | 24% | 988 |
Telecoms
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telecoms | Price dispute | 26% | 902 |
| Telecoms | Customer Service Issue | 26% | 3810 |
| Telecoms | Credit score damaged | 22% | 1129 |
| Telecoms | Billing issue | 17% | 6060 |
| Telecoms | Multiple complaints | 9% | 39382 |
Travel
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel | Accommodation Issue | 32% | 4325 |
| Travel | Customer Service Issue | 32% | 3242 |
| Travel | Multiple complaints | 31% | 61599 |
| Travel | Delayed Train | 28% | 1449 |
| Travel | Delay Repay | 19% | 753 |
Water
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Multiple complaints | -35% | 1843 |
Scotland and South data
The same grouping principle as above has been applied in the following results, but instead of the North, the constituencies within Scotland have been used.
Energy
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | Customer Service Issue | 67% | 3354 |
| Energy | Billing issue | 62% | 2033 |
| Energy | Account details problem (including address changes) | 59% | 508 |
| Energy | Switching supplier problem | 54% | 1375 |
| Energy | Meter reading problem | 51% | 772 |
Telecoms
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telecoms | Customer Service Issue | 33% | 2913 |
| Telecoms | Credit or discount not applied | 20% | 522 |
| Telecoms | Multiple complaints | 19% | 30616 |
| Telecoms | Price dispute | 14% | 635 |
| Telecoms | Poor signal generally | 13% | 5097 |
Travel
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel | Issue with flight | 33% | 218093 |
| Travel | Company has made significant changes | 25% | 440 |
| Travel | Customer Service Issue | 24% | 2355 |
| Travel | Problem with booking/reservation | 18% | 1240 |
| Travel | Delay repay | 16% | 530 |
Water
| Sector | Main complaint | % difference | No. of cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Multiple complaints | 28% | 1440 |
In summary
This data shows that people in the North and Scotland are facing considerable challenges in their everyday lives when trying to pay or switch energy supplier, use their mobile, access a decent broadband signal and get connected with transport services (from trains and buses to planes).
While everyone in the UK is struggling to varying degrees with key infrastructure services, our evidence does show that these problems increase the further North you go.
If you’d like to know more about what is driving the complaints in these sectors, contact Resolver at press@resolver.co.uk
Methodology
The principal areas of complaint were aggregated by constituency and divided by the population within the constituency, giving us the number of complaints per person within the constituency.
In order to correlate this with the geographical location of each constituency an average latitude was calculated from the latitude of each postcode area within the constituencies. This provides us with a general North–South axis of the UK, which can be used to identify patterns of over-indexing by geographical location of a constituency.
As an aside, we’re pleased to confirm that using this approach showed that, as we move North, more complaints relative to the population are being registered with Resolver.
Sampling method
England has 533 constituencies, which in general should be a sample large enough to find significant and meaningful correlations. One of the challenges with our data is that not all of the main issue types across all sectors have been reported from all constituencies. To ensure that most of England is represented in the analysis, only issues that have been reported in 80% of constituencies are presented in this analysis. Additionally, to account for the fact that not all issue types are reported with the same frequency across all constituencies, the correlations were weighted by the number of times a specific issue had been reported within a constituency. Scotland is represented by 58 of its 59 constituencies that we had data for.