Utilising population projections for local authority strategic planning (with notes) Stuart Booker Financial Planning and Research Team Fife Council BSPS Annual Conference University of Southampton September 2006

Context National data sources Quantitative analysis of GAD/GROS projections for Fife Conclusions Fife Council data sources Comments on Fife Council and other data Future work How to synthesise information for strategic planning? Overview

Context Fife is Scotland’s third most populous local authority Fife covers a geographical area of 512 sq. m. Fife has significant rural and urban populations

Context The Edinburgh economy has a significant impact on Fife Fife’s share of the Scottish population is increasing Fife public services operate to a common boundary, including: Council, Health Board, Police Force, Waste Plan Area... Fife has well developed community planning

FPR Requirements Aim: to understand Fife’s future population to allow strategic planning of Fife Council (and Partnership) services IncomeExpenditure Aggregate External FinanceService demand Fife share of key client groups Size of key client groups Number of households Council Tax Number of householdsUnit cost Household composition Other client group trends Other household trends Three year settlement Population projections

Fife Council Requirements Present use of population data Fife Council Education Service Planning Service Other Services Structure Plan Service planning GROS projections ScotXED pupil data School roll projections

GAD (ONS) UK projections made every two years GROS produce variant projections for Scotland GROS produce projections for local authority areas (32) and health boards (15) Advantage Provides self-consistent figures at local authority level across Scotland necessary for projecting resource distribution in future years Disadvantage No projections available below local authority level necessary for planning future service delivery at a local level Issues Migration assumptions and migration data volatility National Data Sources General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) projections

National Data Sources General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) projections Question: are the GROS projections sufficiently reliable for strategic planning of Council services?

National Data Sources General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) projections Method: quantitative analysis of GROS projection methodology Spreadsheet cohort-component model of Fife population Using GAD/GROS implementation Using GAD published fertility/mortality rates Using local scaling factors for Fife published by GROS Using age-sex migration data for Fife supplied by GROS Validated against principal and variant projections for Scotland Note: not reconciled back to Scottish national total

Variant projections for Fife Fertility: method Scotland fertility rates by year and age Cohort component model Projection by year and age Local scaling factor for Fife Principal or variant fertility rates The same method has been used to produce variant projections for high and low life expectancy.

Variant projections for Fife Fertility: results for high fertility projection High fertility projection: TFR of 1.8 Principal projection: TFR of 1.6 Fife local fertility factor: 1.019

Variant projections for Fife Fertility: results for high fertility projection Note: continuing decline in population of secondary school age

Variant projections for Fife Mortality: results for high life expectancy projection High life expectancy: 81.4 (males) and 85.1 (females) at birth in 2031 Principal life expectancy: 79.1 (males) and 83.6 (females) at birth in 2031 Fife local mortality factor: (males) and (females)

Variant projections for Fife Mortality: results for high life expectancy projection Note: significant increase in oldest age groups

Variant projections for Fife Migration: method The age-sex structure for migration varies significantly across Scotland Use long term migration assumption from 2002 based projection Reflects age-sex structure of local authority for (relatively) recent conditions Note: can also look at natural change

Variant projections for Fife Migration: difference in assumption between 2002 and 2004

Variant projections for Fife Migration: results for 2002 based migration Question: if a 5% difference between projections is significant, when does the earliest significant difference occur?

Variant projections for Fife Migration: earliest significant difference between projections Note: this type of approach allows a useful timescale to be put on the set of projections in question

National Data Sources Summary (recording all differences from principal projection > 5%)

Fife Council Sources School roll projections Fife Council Education Service produces school roll projections Based on recent trends and placing requests Uncertain how well trends capture recent increase in housing stock Two projections produced at present A ‘trend-based’ projection A ‘strategic’ projection, including an additional allowance for new housing There is a notable agreement between the school roll projections and two variant projections for Fife (principal and alternative migration) Agreement for primary pupils is slightly better than that for secondary pupils

Fife Council Sources Comparison of school roll projections with Fife variant projections

Fife Council Sources Use of council sources to produce projections at School roll projections are produced at school catchment and area (former district council) level School roll projections provide a way to relate future changes in the pre-school and school age population to projections at the Council area level Information of the local housing requirement

Future Work How to synthesise information for strategic planning? Coherent view of population change in Fife and Scotland as a whole Measures to assess utility of GROS projections Fife Partnership projections e.g. Popgroup Fife Council data GROS projections NHS data