Hackney's 1600 'ghost' workers and 28 'ghost' claimants

When constituency boundary changes came into effect in April 2010 - before the General Election - the number of Job Seekers Allowance claimants rose by 391 in Hackney North. In Hackney South the number of JSA claimants fell by 602.

Together this meant that the number of people claiming Job Seeker's Allowance should have fallen by 211 across the borough as a whole.

+ 391
- 602
= - 211

But according to the Office of National Statistics figures, the net fall in JSA claimants in Hackney, over that period, was 183. (Figures from documents listed on this ONS web page)

This 183 figure matches the ONS's breakdown of male/female JSA claimant figures in the borough but not its Hackney North/Hackney South total. I don't know if this kind of discrepancy is normal - it didn't happen in the month prior to the boundary changes.

The change in constituency boundaries also seemed to generate an estimated 1630 new working-age people in Hackney North. This wouldn't have been surprising if they had previously existed in Hackney South. But the figures suggest that they didn't.

The boundary changes saw the Hackney South working population fall from 72,500 (average of three figures) to 69,000 (average of the two figures). So, across Hackney South, there appears to have been a decrease in working population of about 3500 (72,500-69,000=3500)

Meanwhile, the Hackney North population rose from 69,780 (average of three figures) to 74,910 (average of two figures) - meaning that the Hackney North population increased by 5130 (74910-69,780=5130)

So, the boundary change seems to have resulted in about 1630 previously non-existent workers appearing in the borough (5130-3500=1630) all of them in Hackney North.

The Boundary Commission changes (details below) were made because the number of voters in Hackney constituencies were considered too low to justify having two MPs.

Latest Hackney JSA claimant count:

2010: working population extrapolated from figures in red.
May: 9,616 (6.7%) (9,616/.067=143,522)- next is Tower Hamlets with 6.6%
April: 9,663 (6.7%) (9,663/.067=144,223) - next is Tower Hamlets with 6.5%
March: 9,846 (6.8%) (9,846/0.68=144,794) - next is Tower Hamlets with 6.6%
February: 10,044 (7%) - next highest is Tower Hamlets with 6.7%
January: 9,905 (6.9%) - next highest is Tower Hamlets at 6.6%
2009
December: 9743 (6.7%) - next highest was Tower Hamlets at 6.5%
November: 9,795 (6.8%) - next highest was Tower Hamlets at 6.7%
October: 9,827 (6.8%) - equal highest with Tower Hamlets.
September: 9,884 (7%)
August 9,826 (6.9%)
July: 9550 (6.7%)

Divided into constituencies: - Diane Abbott (North) and Meg Hillier (South) -

Hackney North
May - 4,081
June - 4,118
July - 4206
August - 4,331
September - 4,338
October - 4365
November - 4386 (6.3%)
December - 4331 (6.2%)
January - 4,402 (6.3%) - (4,402/0.063=69,873)
February - 4,450 (6.4%) - (4,450/0.064=69,531)
March - 4,336 (6.2%) - (4,336/0.062=69,935)
April - 4,727 (6.3%) - (4,727/0.063=75,031)
May - 4,637 (6.2%) - (4,637/0.062=74,790)


Hackney South
May - 5,296
June - 5,190
July - 5,344
August - 5,495
September - 5,546 (7.8%)
October - 5,462
November - 5,409 (7.5%)
December - 5,412 (7.5%)
January - 5503 (7.6%) - (5503/0.076)=72,407)
February - 5,594 (7.7%) - (5,594/0.077=72,649)
March - 5,510 (7.6%) - (5,510/0.076=72,500)
April - 4,908 (7.1%) - (4908/0.071=69,126)
May - 4,959 (7.2%) - (4,959/0.072=68,875)


Background from Boundary Commission Report: "3.12 The constituency with the lowest 2000 electorate in London will be Hackney South and Shoreditch BC with 57,204 electors: this will be the second lowest electorate in England after that of Wirral West BC. This constituency electorate is 12,731 below the electorate quota, but only 2,991 below the Hackney borough average of 60,195. Although the borough average is within 260 electors of the 10,000 threshold, we nevertheless considered pairing Hackney with a neighbouring borough. However, we concluded that there was no suitable partner that was not already paired with another borough or one that met our criteria for pairing.

25. In relation to the second counter-proposal as it affected Hackney, the Assistant
Commissioner reported that, from the evidence gained at the inquiry and as a result of his own observations on site visits, the Dalston ward was more closely associated with Stoke Newington and the northern constituency in terms of local community and transport links, and that the King’s Park ward was more closely associated with Hackney South and Shoreditch BC. He stated that, were it simply the question of the King’s Park ward, he would have been less persuaded to recommend a departure from the provisional recommendations.However, the close association of Dalston with Stoke Newington appeared to him to be compelling. For these reasons, he recommended that the changes put forward in the second counter-proposal in relation to Hackney should be adopted and that there should be no change to our provisionally recommended constituencies in Islington.

29. We agreed with the Assistant Commissioner that there was no need to group Hackney,
Islington, and Tower Hamlets. We also agreed with his recommendation that the Hackney
Borough ward of Dalston should be included in Hackney North and Stoke Newington BC, the Hackney Borough ward of King’s Park ward should be included in Hackney South and
Shoreditch BC and the Newham Borough ward of Canning Town South should be included in
West Ham BC.

Recommendation

32. We therefore recommend the adoption of the following eight constituencies in Hackney, Islington, Newham, and Tower Hamlets containing the wards listed in Appendix C:-

2000 electorate

Hackney North and Stoke Newington BC 63,185
Hackney South and Shoreditch BC 57,204
120,389