Life on the Breadline Regional Church Leader Survey, 2019-2020

Life on the Breadline has been the most extensive, evidence-based empirical analysis of Christian responses to UK poverty since the 2008 global financial crash yet developed by academic theologians. The project emerged from the project team's shared conviction that empirically-based rigorous theological research could be a resource for progressive social change in the face of the growing poverty and inequality experienced during the Age of Austerity. The project aimed to analyse the the impact that austerity policies have had on the nature, scope, approach and impact of Christian engagement with poverty in the UK and the ways in which churches have used their enduring localised social capital in tackling poverty. Bringing theology and the social sciences together in dialogue, Life on the Breadline drew on a triangulated approach to primary research - Six ethnographic case studies were developed in London, Birmingham and Manchester [focusing on different aspects of poverty and various Christian traditions], the national Church leaders of fifteen Christian denominations in the UK were interviewed and regional Church leaders from across the UK were invited to take part in an online survey. More than 300 regional Church leaders were invited to take part. Participants were selected on the basis of their position as strategic public leaders and representative figures within the Church in their region. In some cases regions were geographically smaller than others. This was dependent on the different ways in which denominations structured and spread their geographical presence. In this we were guided by the ways in which Churches structured themselves. Where Churches did not respond reminders were sent. Ultimately a total of 104 regional Church leaders from more than twenty Christian denominations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales took part in the survey and responded to a wide range of qualitative closed and open questions about the nature of poverty in their region since the 2008 financial crash, their perceptions about the role UK government policies have played in relation to poverty, their denomination's engagement with poverty at national, regional and local levels and the impact of their anti-poverty social action.