Geography and Areas

Essex Insight uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to analyse and present information about small areas, whether on a map, in tables or on a chart or graph. There are several different types of areas or geographies that have been built into the system for which you can request information or analysis:
 

Neighbourhoods

Neighbourhoods are based on a balance between, being as meaningful as possible for reflecting local issues and being suitable for monitoring trends over time, i.e. that the neighbourhoods are large enough to enable meaningful analysis.

Wards

Wards, or electoral wards, are one of the main administrative areas on which local government is based. Each district or local authority is divided into a number of wards and 3 Councillors are elected to represent each ward on the Council. Until quite recently wards were the smallest areas about which reliable statistics were available and a lot of information is still published at ward level. A single ward is likely to contain several neighbourhoods which may, or may not, nest neatly within the ward boundaries.

Districts

Districts are the local authority town or city. There are 12 districts and boroughs in Essexrington. Between them the 12 districts cover the whole of the area.

The Neighbourhood Statistics (NeSS) Geography Hierarchy is based on aggregations of Output Areas (OAs) and has been introduced to avoid the frequently changing geography of electoral wards. It is also intended to allow a range of different sizes of area at which data can be presented.

Output Areas

These were introduced as the smallest units of output for the 2001 Census. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland they have a minimum size of 100 residents and 40 households.


Super Output Areas (SOAs)

These are units of geography used in the UK for statistical analysis. They are developed and released by UK Statistics.
To support a range of potential requirements there are 3 layers of SOA:
 

Lower Layer (LSOA)	Minimum population 1,000; mean 1,500. Built from groups of OAs (typically 4 to 6) and constrained by the boundaries of the Standard Table (ST) wards used for 2001 Census outputs.
Middle Layer  (MSOA)	Minimum population 5,000; mean 7,200. Built from groups of Lower Layer SOAs and constrained by the 2003 local authority boundaries used for 2001 Census outputs.
Upper Layer	To be determined; minimum size c.25,000

Other Boundary Areas
Other boundary areas exist, based on specific organisations such as Essex Police "neighbourhoods" and Primary Care Trust boundaries.
To support a range of potential requirements there are 3 layers