Household Estimates and Projections: What next? Bob Garland Housing Markets and Planning Analyses

2 Household Estimates and Projections: Recent Work March 2006: 2003 based household projections for England and Regions April 2006: 2003 based household projections for local authorities in England April onwards- Provision on request of analyses from the 2003 based household projections:- household representative rates; more detailed age and gender breakdown. October 2006: Household estimates by local authority Current: 2004 based household projections

3 Household Estimates and Projections Next major update: household projections linked to ONS 2006 based sub-national population projections- expected 2 nd half of 2008 A pause and time to review our household projection work Why? How? When?

4 Why? Development of housing and planning policy requires evidence of the likely future demand for housing. Population projections provide evidence on the likely future demand for services such as health and education. But ‘households’ consume ‘housing’ and household numbers are growing faster than population so we need projections of households Knowledge of future household growth informs the national policy and Regional and Local Plans.

5 How? (1) Makes sense to tie into the ONS official population projections that will have national projections every two years and sub-national projections about one year after each national projection. Various ways to convert population into household numbers: each have advantages and disadvantages

Projection Process

7 How? (2) Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency considered various methods in producing ‘Household Projections for Northern Ireland: ’ (Published January 2005) Each method has advantages and disadvantages

8 Household Projection Methods MethodAdvantagesDisadvantages Trends in average household size applied to population projections SimpleDoes not account the effect of changing population age and gender structure and in the types of households Household Representative Rates- Projections of the proportions of age/gender groups that are ‘reps’ and ‘non reps’ Accounts for changing household types (e.g. one person households) Complex, data hungry, household rep may be affected by definitional changes in Census (but not CLG method) Individual propensity – individuals allocated to family / household groupings by individual probabilities Accounts for changing family and household structures. Does not rely on household rep. Complex, data hungry

9 Household Projection Methods: Some Issues Projections of marital and cohabitationWhether to use these to guide the household projections Projections of household representative / individual propensity rates Whether to account for the ‘life cycle’ affect as well as historic trends. Taking account of saturation household representative rates National/ Regional controllingHow best to ensure consistency between national, regional and local projections Institutional populationElderly population - life-time homes Ability to produce variantsScenarios – to provide policy with a range

10 Household Estimates Household estimates produced by applying projected household representative rates to mid year estimates. Issues (as raised by Alan Holmans): Link between dwellings and households Do we need an integrated model? Do we need to use administrative sources (e.g. council tax)

11 Household Projections and Estimate A review to take in all those involved in estimates and projections ONS Communities and Local Government GRO NISRA WAG Regional Assemblies