Welcome to the Geography Consultation Blog

As a National Park Authority straddling 9 Unitary Authorities, the analysis of Census Data has historically created headaches for our Development Plan team.

To date the Census has not recognised the National Park Authority as a "Local Authority". The result being that Authority wide data is not relevant to the National Park area.

Further headaches ensue with OA's which are drawn to Local Authority Areas, as we have a number communities and settlements which fall accross the Local Authority Administrative boundary.

Responses to previous consultations on the Census have drawn a blank on the grounds of problems with disclosure if smaller output areas were drawn for the areas within the National Park.

Do National Statistics have any new answers this time around?

If the output areas can't be fixed to meet our needs, are there any other solutions you, or any weblog readers can suggest?

Bearing in mind that we are a small team, in a small authority which does not have a dedicated statistics resource.

I have been involved with the Audit Commission Area Profiles work, in particular the VCS pilots, and trying to profile community needs, especially rural, over a much longer time period.
It is a constant frustration that data and maps are often not available for civil parish level, with flexibility to be aggregated in other combinations to reflect not only geographical communities but communities of interest, policy, strategy, etc.
With the focus on generally 'evidencing' the sector and its needs to meet the demands of politicians, authorities and funders, it is critical that various types of data, including that produced locally (eg via parish plans, appraisals, feasibility studies etc) can relate to census and other reports. This also requires much more support to groups to access or acquire the software and expertise to do this and overcome their exclusion from the process (perhaps a separate but relevant debate).
I would also like to see more of the geographies set up to enable comparison on the flow of resources to different areas (eg central and local government target areas)and to allow inputting on features not covered by the census etc: for example,more nuanced data on services, facilities and activities - such as access to community buildings, distance from citizens advice or volunteer bureau,presence of specialist support to BME groups, etc.
This has been happening in various 'developing' countries for years, using GIS ...we seem to be a long way behind.

Primary Care Trusts have been increased in average size from about 120k to 500k populations. Public health departments will thus look at far larger populations and anything that decreases the ability to drill down will be seen as a negative move.
I would still like data to be available by political Wards.

JohnB

I support the creation of a separate business OA geography. These should be based on a minimum number of employees and busineses within them (from 2001 Census?). They would not lead to disclosure issues because they would represent a different population - NOT residential but workplace or daytime. The problems with 2001 Census has been the failure to provide industry of employment data on workplace population at geographies less than ward AND the large workplace populations and segmented counts for some city centre/urban residential OAs.

I use the OAs alot, because I need to get an understanding of where affluence and education levels are highest in a city and it's hinterland. SOA just won't be detailed enough. I don't mind you changing the methodology per se, but as I use a very simple mapping prgramme linked to postcodes, the data must be easily and meaningfully convertable into that format. Please ensure that the detailed analysis is preserved too.

Thanks