Utilising Population Projections for Strategic Planning

1. 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 18-20 September 2006

2. Overview • 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?

3. 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

4. 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

5. FPR Requirements Aim: to understand Fife’s future population to allow strategic planning of Fife Council (and Partnership) services Income Expenditure Aggregate External Finance Service demand Fife share of key client groupsSize of key client groups Number of households Council Tax Number of households Unit cost Household composition Other client group trends Other household trends Three year settlement Population projections

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

7. National Data Sources General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) 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

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

9. 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

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

11. 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

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

13. 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: 0.928 (males) and 0.939 (females)

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

15. 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

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

17. 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?

18. 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

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

20. 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

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

22. 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

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