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Welsh Assembly – with Pion Economics

In 2005, the Welsh Assembly awarded a contract to Pion Economics who enlisted the help of Salford GIS as part of their study into population dispersion in Wales.

The Welsh Assembly gives grants to local authorities based on what are termed Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) formulae. Part of these formulae take into account settlement and dispersion indices, which are intended to reflect the extra costs of providing services in rural areas.

There had been significant change in population densities since the last time such work was carried out, so the Assembly wished to update the indices and also examine population clusters of different sizes to ensure the fairest possible distribution of funding.

The work involved the production of a “settlement map” for Wales, based upon the proportion of the population in each of 22 unitary authorities in Wales outside settlements above a specified threshold population size, and the distance (using actual road lengths on viable routes) to defined settlement centroids within each authority.