Introduction

The Social Report 2009

The social report uses a set of statistical indicators to monitor trends across 10 "domains", or areas of people’s lives. Together these domains provide a picture at a national, regional and territorial authority level.

The Social Report 2009 is the latest in an annual series. It builds on the social monitoring framework first established by The Social Report 2001 and uses the same domains as those used last year.

This introduction outlines:

• the purpose of the social report
• what are social indicators
• how we report outcomes for age, sex, region or other characteristics
• the domains and indicators used for The Social Report 2009
• the structure of the report.