Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable Rural Communities A policy based approach Pippa...

Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable Rural

Communities

A policy based approach

Pippa GibsonDefra

Overview• Rural definitions– Definition– Classification

• Measuring Socially and Economically Sustainable Rural Communities– Background– Selecting indicators – Measuring success– Examples– Next steps

• Conclusions

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


• 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.


The definition takes the form of:

Urban Rural

Town/ fringe

Village Isolated dwellings

Town/ fringe


Sparse Less sparseSparse Less sparse

England


Can group by settlement type:

Urban Rural

Town/ fringe


Town/ fringe



England


Or by sparsity:

Urban Rural

Town/ fringe


Town/ fringe



England


• This is very useful to examine differences between different types of rural settlement - doesn’t 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

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

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

Aggregating the LA classification

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

‘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

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.

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

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

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

Measuring success: ‘traffic lights’

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)

Education

Number of entrants to higher education

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

Housing affordability

Ratio of earnings to house prices

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

Economic growth

Productivity

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?

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

Thank you

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