Kents new structured approach to housing requirements and using POPGROUP Debbie Mayes Kent County Council

Outline of presentation History of demographic forecasting in Kent The need for change Kents new approach – negotiating with 12 districts Experience of using POPGROUP and the DF model

History of demographic forecasting KCC has traditionally used forecasts to inform: 1.Spatial planning policy: Initially County Structure Plan (Kent and Medway Structure Plan) Subsequently Regional Spatial Strategy (The South East Plan) 2. Service provision planning Between 1999 and Feb 2011 forecasts produced using the Chelmer Population and Housing Model In-house forecasting ability provides flexibility and range of forecasting approaches

Historical forecasting approach Central government projections = trend-based The County wanted to understand the impact of: Longer-term migration trend on housing need Indigenous population growth on housing need House building scenarios on population growth Thus combining population and housing elements At district level for 12 Kent districts and Medway UA The Chelmer model provided functionality

The need for change! Two main drivers of change to Kents forecasting approach: 1.Government revoked all Regional Spatial Strategies 2.Chelmer ceased as an available model for LAs to run in-house

Kents new approach…. Negotiating with 12 local district authorities and Medway UA to set housing targets Traditionally LAs given housing targets Now LAs set their own housing targets and not sure how to go about it! Kent Planning Officers Group (KPOG) set up a housing forecasts sub-group District and county representatives Identified methodology for determining dwelling numbers Part of methodology involves forecasts

Kents new approach (2) Negotiating with 12 local district authorities and Medway UA to set housing targets Outlined range of forecasting approaches: Zero Net Migration projection Migration trend projection Housing-led forecast Job-led forecast Rather than prescribe a set approach for all, individual LAs could decide on the approach suitable for their district Forecasting work led by County Council Districts commission County on a bespoke basis

Kents new approach (3) Negotiating with 12 local district authorities and Medway UA to set housing targets The County Council also has a need to produce county- wide forecasts for service provision planning Requirement for this forecast to be strategy-based No longer an easy task! With agreement from 12 LAs and Medway, the County Council has established a county-wide housing provision Very sensitive issue Didnt want work to be seen as a top-down county approach to future growth given localism agenda

Kents new approach….. To forecasting using POPGROUP and the DF model POPGROUP only alternative model available Satisfied that POPGROUP would offer same functionality as Chelmer, if not more! For example: Could undertake job-led forecasts Was a single year based model, not only in terms of forecast years but also age Could take account of new household types Allowed ability to produce disability forecasts, ward forecasts etc Excel format provides greater transparency

Experience of using POPGROUP Built a district level model – 12 LAs and 1 UA Initially time-consuming to populate model with required data (Having lots of areas didnt help!) Access to most of required datasets but requested some additional detail from CLG/ ONS Up and running a housing-led forecast relatively quickly

Experience of using POPGROUP DF model for households/ dwellings easy to set up and populate using new data module Required further guidance to produce: - Migration trend (including ZNM) projections - Job-led forecasts (including building the DF model) Manual in need of updating Very good technical support from Edge Analytics User friendly output files –Reporter and charter functionality particularly helpful

Experience of using POPGROUP Requires a good folder structure of input/ output files Have to run forecast for all areas even if forecast only required for one area (unless separate models created) Forecast can take 30mins to produce if deriving both dwelling/ households and jobs/ labour supply However, very useful to be able to derive two components at the same time!

Concluding comments POPGROUP has enabled consistency for Kent in terms of forecasting work with added functionality It hasnt been an easy ride! However, the effort has been worthwhile Previous forecasting experience was a bonus to produce what Kent required Potential for Kent to explore POPGROUP further i.e. disability and ward level forecasts

Questions? Debbie Mayes Senior Researcher (Demography) Research & Evaluation Kent County Council Tel: