THIS REPORT RELATES STIRLING COUNCIL TO ITEM 12 ON THE AGENDA

STIRLING COUNCIL CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S SERVICES

23 May 1996 NOT EXEMPT

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY COMMISSION REVIEW OF ELECTORAL ARRANGEMENTS IN STIRLING COUNCIL

1 SUMMARY

1.1 The Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland is currently undertaking a statutory review of electoral boundaries within each of the new unitary authorities in Scotland. They propose reducing the number of electoral wards in Stirling Council from 22 to 18. This is because Stirling Council has been categorised as “Mainly Urban” under the criteria it is using to designate the number of wards in the new authorities.

1.2 This paper concludes that Stirling Council has been mis-classified and recommends that a new hybrid category be created which would retain the existing number of 22 wards.

2 RECOMMENDATION(S)

2.1 It is recommended that :

(a) Stirling Council does not accept the Boundary Commission’s proposals to reduce the number of wards from 22 to 18. Their proposal has been made on the grounds of classifying the Council as one of 17 “Mainly Urban” authorities, even though it does not meet all the criteria needed to be classified as such.

(b) Propose to the Commission that the Council be re-classified into a new category which reflects the profile of the area. This would result in the current number of 22 wards being retained. -2-

3 BACKGROUND

The Boundary Commission Review

3.1 The 1994 Local Government (Scotland) Act places a requirement on the Commission to review electoral arrangements as soon as practicable after 1 April 1996. The Commission have identified two stages to the review. First to agree the number of wards for each Unitary Council which is intended to be completed by June. Thereafter, each Council will be asked to consider the boundaries of the electoral wards and make proposals to the Commission.

3.2 The basis of the first stage of the Commissions review of the number of wards is the principle of ensuring political equity. In order to achieve this, Councils have been assigned to one of six categories.

• The ratio of Ward to electorate depends on which of the six categories a council is assigned to.

Classification Ratio of Ward to Electorate Number of Authorities

Large Cities 1:6,000 2

Cities 1:4,000 2

Mainly Urban 1:3,500 17

Mainly Rural 1:2,500 5

Special Cases 1:2,000 3

Islands Not yet completed 3

Implications of the Review for Stirling Council

3.3 The Boundary Commission has classified Stirling Council as “Mainly Urban” even though it meets only one of the two criteria needed to be set in this category. It also meets one of the two criteria needed to be classified as “Mainly Rural”

3.4 The Classification “Mainly Urban” is given to:

(i) Authorities with more than 40% of the population living in settlements of over 10,000 inhabitants.

(ii) Authorities with a population density of more than one person per hectare.

Under this classification, the number of wards in Stirling Council would reduce from 22 to 18.

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3.5 The Classification “Mainly Rural” is given to:

(i) Authorities with more than 60% of the population living in settlements of less than 10,000 inhabitants.

(ii) Authorities with a population density of less than one person per hectare.

Under this classification, the number of wards in Stirling Council would increase from 22 to 26.

3.6 Stirling Council is urban in the sense that 52% of its population lives in urban areas, but rural since there are 0.37 persons per hectare. Consequently, it fits only one of the two criteria needed to be classified as a “Mainly Urban” authority.

Implications of Classifying Stirling Council as Urban

3.7 The key difficulties this classification would create are as follows:

(a) By reducing the number of wards from 22 to 18 (1 for every 3,625 electors), the number of electorate per ward would be the fifth highest of all the New Councils, ranking only below the four City Councils (see Appendix 1).

(b) Stirling would have the minimum number or wards designated by the Commission as workable. This would make it comparable with, for example, a council the size of Clackmannan (see Appendix 1)

(c) Larger wards make it harder for the Council to achieve two of its key values;

(i) “making access to the Council as easy as possible”

(ii) “encourage communities to fully participate in the decision making process”

(d) It would increase difficulties of ensuring active Member representation on groups and decision-making committees. Thus it would reduce the ability of Councillors to effectively represent the electorate. There would be a democratic deficit.

4 AN ALTERNATIVE CLASSIFICATION

4.1 Stirling Council does not fit comfortably into either the urban or rural classifications since, as an area it has both rural and urban characteristics. The evidence is as follows:

(a) In terms of meeting one urban criterion, just over half (52%) of its population live in settlements of over 10,000 inhabitants. This population lives in and around one large urban settlement (Stirling town). On this evidence alone, it may seem reasonable to classify Stirling Council as “Mainly Urban”.

(b) However, compared to other “Urban” councils, Stirling has one of the smallest populations and largest land areas.

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(c) The population density is 0.37 persons per hectare. This is the lowest of Councils classifies as “Mainly Urban” and similar to Councils classified as “Mainly Rural” (see Charts 1 and 2). This would suggest that the classification of “Mainly Urban” is inappropriate.

(d) Table 2 below, however, shows that whilst the population density of Stirling Council is similar to five authorities which have been classified as “Mainly Rural”, the proportion of its population living within urban settlements is greater than any of these “Mainly Rural” authorities.

Table 2 : Rural Council Characteristics

Comparison with Stirling Council

Council Area Person Per % Population Largest Town Town Hectare in Urban Population Settlements1

Moray 0.39 22 Elgin 19,027

Stirling 0.37 50 “Greater 41,278 Stirling”2

Aberdeenshire 0.36 14 Peterhead 18,674

Perth & Kinross 0.25 31.5 Perth 41,453

Dumfries & 0.23 29.5 Dumfries 32,136 Galloway

Borders 0.22 28 Hawick 15,812

1 Settlements with over 10,000 inhabitants

2 Greater Stirling includes Stirling, Bannockburn, Bridge of Allen and Stirling University.

5PROPOSALS

(i) Stirling Council as a Hybrid Between Rural and Urban?

5.1 Accepting the Boundary Commission’s criteria, Stirling Council meets one “rural” and one “urban” criterion.

5.2 Stirling is already recognised for the purposes of grant allocations by the European Commission as having both urban and rural characteristics. The south Eastern part of the Council area has been designated an Objective 2 development area (declining urban area) and the rural western part Objective 5b (declining rural area).

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5.3 The Stirling Council area displays both rural and urban characteristics, hence the difficulties of classifying it as either urban or rural. The population is split almost in half between urban and rural areas (52% urban and 48% rural). Given the near balance between the two, Stirling can logically be classified as falling between the “mainly urban” and “mainly rural” categories of local authorities. Consequently a division of wards based on 3,000 electors would seem appropriate as this is half way between the proposed rural electorate (one ward for every 2,5000 electors) and the proposed urban electorate ( one ward for every 3,5000 electors).

The Implications of this proposal

5.4 Classifying Stirling as a “Rural/Urban” hybrid has the following implications:

- the Commission has indicated that any adjustment of the classification criteria would have to be applicable to more than one Council. Stirling along with three other Authorities (East Lothian, Angus and East Ayrshire) each meet one urban and one rural criterion. Consequently there is wider justification to create this new rural/urban hybrid category.

- the existing number of 22 wards would remain.

- some adjustment of the boundaries may be needed

- the current level of representation would be retained.

(ii) Stirling as Mainly Rural

5.5 If the creation of an additional rural/urban category is not acceptable, there is a case to classify Stirling as “Mainly Rural” rather than “Mainly Urban”

(a) As noted above, there are four Councils which meet only one of the Boundary Commission’s criteria for being classified as either urban or rural. There is no apparent reason why all of these authorities should be examined individually to assess their proximity to either urban or rural characteristics. An authority’s classification should reflect their predominant characteristics.

(b) Compared to all authorities, with the exception of the City and Island councils, Stirling ranks within the top third of authorities with a high proportion of their population living in rural areas (see Chart 3).

(c) Stirling Council has the lowest population density of all the authorities classified as urban, and indeed, there are only four rural authorities with a lower population density (see Charts 1 and 2). Furthermore, compared to the authorities classified as “Mainly Urban”, Stirling Council has far less of its population living in urban areas (see Appendix 2)

(d) Compared, with the other three hybrid authorities, Stirling ranks second highest in terms of the percentage population living in rural areas, and lowest in terms of population density. The only authority (East Lothian) ranking higher in terms of percentage population living in rural areas has a much greater population density than Stirling Council. Stirling could therefore be considered to be the most rural of these hybrid cases.

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(e) Although Stirling has an urban core (Stirling, Bannockburn, Bridge of Allan) – the rural areas are very rural. A large part of the population (almost 26%) live in the six western rural wards. Here there are only 0.1 persons per hectare. This is only slightly higher than the average density of the Highlands Council area (0.08) which has an electorate of 2,000 per ward. Consequently, as a sparsely populated area, the problems of creating manageable wards for effective council representation should be considered.

(f) Within Stirling Council, there are a number of very small towns scattered over a wide area. This is a similar settlement pattern to the rural authorities. This pattern gives rise to a natural community focus, with settlements having strong local identities. Large rural wards may make it difficult for Councillors to reflect the range of different local perspectives and needs.

Implications of Classifying Stirling as a “Mainly Rural” Authority

5.6 To classify Stirling Council as rural would mean:

• Increasing the number of wards from 22 to 26 (1 for every 2,500 electors).

• Reducing the current size of some wards – making representation potentially more effective.

• Potentially reducing difficulties of ensuing active representation on groups and decision-making committees.

6.0 CONCLUSION

6.1 There is not sufficient justification to classify Stirling Council as a “Mainly Urban” authority as proposed in the Boundary Commission guidelines. This would reduce the number of wards from 22 to 18. There is a very strong argument to create a separate classification which fits the profile of the area. This would retain the existing number of 22 wards.

Chief Executive

Authors: Sean Brennan, Mari Wright

Date: 14 May 1996

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