The commission then heard from
Ben Corr, Demography and City Modelling Manager at GLA on the
following themes:
- Background on pupil
place planning and methodology behind school rolls
projections
- Majority of Local
Authorities (28-29 in a year) in London opt in to the schools rolls
projections service, projections are derived by using mainstream
data sets of age, sex and planning alongside consistent population
projections which incorporate housing
trajectory data from local authorities.
- Unbiased and
independent projections based on in-depth analysis of demographics
which complement the reports submitted to Department for Education
(DfE) by the Local Authority with very
few changes, some authorities use the projections as a check
against their own numbers.
- GLA projections are
challenging to produce and are based on complex models, these
models are highly transparent to help the Local Authority’s
understanding on the various factors that have or have not been
used in the projections.
- Projections are based
on ‘Trend based population projections’ which is an
internationally recognised method also used by Office for National
Statistics (ONS), specifically GLA use a multi-regional model based
on past trends of birth and death rates and then factor in housing
data from Local Authorities. This model then assigns children to
actual schools based on patterns.
- Issues with inflation
in population projections in the middle of the decade caused by
high international migration especially in London having higher
migration. Therefore affecting school rolls projection that
produced higher numbers in addition to other challenges of
predicting fertility rates, family planning decisions, housing
completion and delivery. A short period of time exists between
birth and the point where reception is required for children in
primary schools, official data could take up to two years to be
processed and published making it difficult to produce accurate
projections
- Other challenges that
affect school projections
•
Size, makeup and tenure of housing stock
•
Housing development and delivery with delays that
could last years
•
Shock events such as financial recession in 2008 and
post 2004 boom in birth rate in London
•
Covid
short term impact still unknown
•
Brexit, eastern European migration trends in some
parts of London.
•
Changing characteristics of family planning and size
that are hard to predict
•
Regeneration schemes and gentrification
•
Changing popularity and number of schools
•
Need for Local Authorities to communicate better
with regards to opening of new schools.
•
Birth rates have fallen by 33% in the past 10
years
The commission then discussed
the following topics
- Young couples who
moved to Southwark before the spike in birth rate and are not
having babies anymore, this is an increasingly common
phenomenon.
- Increase in birth
rate from 2004 onwards that might have had an effect on school
projections
- Methodology behind
inaccurate school projections in 2015 to 2016 resulting in change
to GLA methodology 2018 onwards
- Other significant
factors such as housing affordability and cost of living
crisis
- Shared housing in
multiple occupation have more incomes to afford the rent when
compared to couples and families
- Need for the council
to work with the GLA to adapt methodology, software and code to
Local Authority data modelling as revisions in Census Data take
years for GLA to revise their school projections