Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable Rural Communities

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Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable
Rural Communities

• A policy based approach
• Pippa Gibson
• Defra

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Overview

• Rural definitions
• Definition
• Classification
• Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable
  Rural Communities
• Background
• Selecting indicators
• Measuring success
• Examples
• Next steps
• Conclusions

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How to define rural?

• Rural Definition developed in 2004
• Start by dividing England into a grid of hectare
  square cells (100m x 100m)
• Every postal address grouped into hectare cell
  into which it falls
• Residential density is calculated for all cells
  for a series of radii around each cell
• Based on the residential density and the
  relationships between radii, the underlying
  settlement classification is created

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How to define rural?

• Settlements are defined by morphology and context
• Urban cut off is 10,000 population
• Within rural, there are three settlement types
  town and fringe, villages, and hamlets and
  isolated dwellings.
• The context of each settlement is also taken into
  account. The most remote areas are defined as
  being in a sparse context.

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How to define rural?

• The definition takes the form of

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• Can group by settlement type

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• Can group by settlement type

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• Can group by settlement type

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• Or by sparsity

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• Or by sparsity

England
Urban
Rural
Sparse
Less sparse
Sparse
Less sparse
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
Town/ fringe
Village
Isolated dwellings
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How to define rural?

• This is very useful to examine differences
  between different types of rural settlement -
  doesnt assume that all rural areas are the same
• Data need to be at a sufficiently small spatial
  scale to apply this definition
• Often data are published at a higher geographical
  level so need classification to take account of
  this

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Local Authority classification

• Data are often only published at local authority
  level (equivalent to NUTS4)
• Disclosure
• Coverage
• Using the Rural Definition as a base, we can
  classify local authorities on a six-point scale
  of rural to urban

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Criteria behind the LA classification

• Major Urban districts with either 100,000 people
  or 50 percent of their population in an urban
  area with a population of more than 750,000
• Large Urban districts with either 50,000 people
  or 50 percent of their population in one of 17
  urban areas with a population between 250,000 and
  750,000
• Other Urban districts with less than 26 percent
  of their population in rural settlements and
  larger market towns
• Significant Rural districts with more than 26
  percent of their population in rural settlements
  and larger market towns
• Rural-50 districts with at least 50 percent but
  less than 80 percent of their population in rural
  settlements and larger market towns
• Rural-80 districts with at least 80 percent of
  their population in rural settlements and larger
  market towns

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Aggregating the LA classification
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Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable
Rural Communities

• One of Defra's key objectives
• Measured in two parts
• The evidenced needs of rural people and
  communities are addressed through mainstream
  public policy and delivery
• Economic growth is supported in rural areas with
  the lowest levels of performance

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Mainstreaming objective - theory

• Government targets policy in all areas,
  regardless of whether they are urban or rural
• Defra aims to monitor whether a range of
  Government policies are impacting in rural areas
  as much as in urban areas
• A range of policy areas are monitored education,
  health, housing, crime, social capital and poverty

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Economic objective

• This also looks at whether rural areas are at a
  disadvantage compared with England as a whole,
  but focus on economic indicators
• A variety of economic areas are monitored
  earnings, employment, adult skills, business
  investment and enterprise.

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Measuring these indicators

• Indicators were chosen not only for their
  relevance but also for their availability
• Data must ideally be available at a low spatial
  level to apply the Definition
• Census output areas (population 300)
• Super output areas (population 1,500)
• Wards (population 5000)
• Only if this is not available, use local
  authority level data

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Selection of indicators

• Within each sub-theme a range of measureable
  indicators is selected
• E.g. Health sub-theme measured by
• Life expectancy
• Potential years of life lost from cancer, stroke,
  heart disease, suicide
• Infant mortality
• Data on provision of social care not available so
  this indicator not selected

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Measuring success

• Aim is NOT for rural areas to out-perform urban
  areas or the national average
• Rural areas should perform as well as the England
  average
• If they perform below average, the trend should
  suggest improvement

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Measuring success traffic lights
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Example results

• Number of entrants to higher education
• Data are available by ward, so can use the Rural
  Definition
• Aggregate number of entrants for each category
• Present as a rate per 1,000 18-20 year olds
  (because populations are very different in rural
  and urban areas)

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Education

• Number of entrants to higher education

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Housing affordability

• Ratio of earnings to house prices
• Data only available by local authority, so use LA
  classification
• Present as a population weighted average of
  earnings house price ratio

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Housing affordability

• Ratio of earnings to house prices

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Economic growth

• Productivity
• Gross Value Added data available but not
  published at local authority level
• When aggregated to the LA classification we can
  publish the figures
• Advantage of having lower level data is that we
  can separate out the London authorities which
  tells a very different story

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Economic growth

• Productivity

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Economic growth

• Productivity

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Next steps/future work

• Mainstreaming indicators research programme
• Reasons for differences?
• Averages mask localised disadvantage?
• Share results with lead Department
• Lowest performing rural areas?
• Which areas are performing as well as they can?
• Which areas could perform better?

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Conclusions

• No single indicator can measure socially and
  economically sustainable rural communities
• Nor can a set of indicators fully reflect every
  aspect of rural life
• BUT a range of Government priorities can be
  monitored using available data and robust rural
  definition/classifications
• Sound evidence base enables Government to focus
  on areas with greatest indication of need

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• Thank you