To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the current population of (a) each Essex borough and (b) each ward in Southend West constituency based on (i) the 2001 Census, (ii) electoral rolls and (iii) health service users; and what projections he has made for the next five years.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician who has been asked to reply.

Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 14 February 2006

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your question regarding the current population of (a) each Essex borough and (b) each ward in Southend West constituency based on (i) the 2001 Census, (ii) electoral rolls, and (iii) health service users; and what projections have been made for the next five years. (50479)

The tables attached provide the information you have requested. Data for Essex local authorities, including the former Essex authorities of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. Data for wards in Southend West are shown in table 3.

ONS publishes annual mid-year population estimates. The latest estimates are for mid-2004 and are given in Table 1. These mid-year population estimates are calculated using a robust methodology and are the best estimates of the resident population in an area. They are based on aged-on 2001 Census data adjusted for births, deaths, and net migration. Further information on the methodology can be found at:

www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=575.

Population projections for each local authority in Essex, for mid-2005 to mid-2010, are also given in Table 1. These projections are based on the mid-2003 population estimates and are the latest population projections available. They assume that trends in fertility, mortality and migration at the time of the mid-2003 population estimate will continue into the future.

Electoral rolls provide counts of the number of people registered to vote. The latest available data, on the local/European electorate and the Parliamentary electorate, for local authorities in Essex can be found in the Table 2. These data are for 1 December 2004. It should be noted that the number of people eligible to vote is not the same as the resident population aged 18 and over. There are numerous reasons for this. For example not everyone who is usually resident is entitled to vote (foreign citizens from outside of the EU and Commonwealth, prisoners, etc. are not eligible), some people do not register to vote and people who have more than one address may register in more than one place. Further, there is inevitably some double counting of the registered electorate as electoral registration officers vary in how quickly they remove people from the registers after they have moved away from an area or after they have died. These factors have a differential impact from area to area.

The number of people registered with a GP, living in each local authority in Essex, in July 2004, can also be found in the Table 2. It should also be noted that patient register counts differ from estimates of the usually resident population for a number of reasons.

Patient registers include people who are in the country for at least three months, whereas population estimates are based on a usual residence definition requiring a stay of 12 months or more. The patient registers exclude individuals who are ineligible to be registered with a GP. People may be on a patient register after having left the country and not deregistered with their GP; similarly people may have moved to another area and not re-registered. Some patients may have more than one NHS number e.g. they may have been issued a temporary number for a short period. Again, these factors have a differential impact from place to place.

Ward data are shown in Table 3; the points set out above also apply to wards. However, there are some further points to note for wards.

The most recent population estimates for wards are for mid-2002. The closest available geography to current electoral wards, for which population estimates are available, is Census Area Statistics (CAS) wards. This geography was created for outputs from the 2001 Census and is based mainly on 2003 electoral wards. The CAS ward level population estimates have been published with the status of experimental statistics". Therefore, the estimates, and figures derived from them, should be treated with some care. The margin of confidence for population estimates is proportionately larger at ward level than at local authority level.

The ONS does not produce projections of population at ward level.

Table 3 contains CAS ward electorate counts for December 2002 and 2004 as well as patient register figures for July 2002 and July 2004. The 2002 figures are given for comparison with population estimates and 2004 are the latest available data.

Finally, the local government electorate is definitionally closer to the population estimates, however these data are not available at ward level. Hence, the Parliamentary electorate is shown.

⁽⁹⁾ The population projections shown in this table are taken from the 2003-based subnational population projections, the latest set of projections currently available. Therefore they may not be consistent with the 2004 mid year estimate presented in the first column.

Source:

Office for National Statistics

⁽¹⁰⁾ Local government electors are those people who are entitled to vote in local elections and who meet the residence qualification. These include Peers and European citizens but exclude overseas voters.

⁽¹¹⁾ Parliamentary electors are those people who are entitled to vote in parliamentary elections at Westminster and who meet the residence qualification. Those include overseas voters but exclude Peers and European citizens.

Source:

Office for National Statistics.

⁽¹²⁾ This ward also falls within Rochford and Southend East Parliamentary Constituency. Data for the whole ward are shown, as it is not possible to split this data for this ward into the two constituencies.

Notes:

1. The mid-2002 ward population estimates are consistent with the published mid-2002 local authority estimates (September 2004 revisions).

2. Whilst the ward population estimates are produced down to unit level, it is not implied that the estimates are accurate to this level of detail.

3. The electorate counts are taken from the statutory RPF 29 returns.

Source:

Office for National Statistics