Adrian
Co-operative Party
Posts: 1,742 
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Post by Adrian on May 12, 2016 16:15:07 GMT
I think putting Oscott into an Aldridge seat slightly fails the livewithableness test. Personally, I can just about live with being in an Aldridge seat, but being in an orphan ward has democratic disadvantages, and more importantly it would mean three split communities because Oscott ward includes part of Kingstanding, part of Perry Common and part of Perry Beeches. (Local people continually complain about the use of the M6 as a boundary, but it continues because of the numbers.) There is a clue to the nature of the ward in its name: Oscott is not a real place, and even "Old Oscott" as shown on maps is rarely used by local people. The ward boundaries in Birmingham, as they are in a lot of places, are designed for internal use only. There are only a few places where they accurately divide communities, though this will improve after the ongoing ward review. The BCE has continually been disingenuous in advocating for the primacy of wards in redistricting, but their propaganda has generally worked, and made it difficult even for MPs, who are the lawmakers after all, to get them to change their mind.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on May 12, 2016 17:34:07 GMT
The obvious example of this is conformity to LA boundaries, and a glance at the BCE data is enough to show why: the great majority of LAs simply have too many or too few electors and boundary crossings are thus inevitable. But even when a boundary must be crossed, that doesn't mean that we should disregard it entirely. Indeed, it's ironic that YL, who stresses the importance of respecting LA borders, should be so critical of Hullenedge's W Yorks scheme; because I thought a compelling advantage of this plan is the fact that in all of W Yorks, only four wards (three in Bradford and one in Wakefield) are treated with the 'wrong' authority. These aside, the LA boundaries are followed throughout. I think this is the wrong thing to count (if you're going to measure this by counting). It would be better to count the number of constituencies which cross borders; your way rewards orphan wards as compared to cross-border constituencies which have coherent components on both sides of the border. (However, there are good and bad ways to cross borders, so a simple count isn't going to give the whole picture.) And the minimal splits approach to West and South Yorkshire has eight border-crossing constituencies (four in each county); if you're fairly free with ward splitting you can get that down to three, though admittedly one of them is crossing the county boundary. (One crossing Rotherham/Barnsley, one crossing Wakefield/Doncaster, and one crossing Leeds/Bradford.) And a number of existing seats which are within quota -- Batley & Spen, Dewsbury and Rother Valley -- can be left totally unchanged. [NB I don't necessarily endorse this approach; you've misunderstood me if you thought I was saying that local government boundaries should be put on a pedestal.] Furthermore, all four of those orphan wards are "bad" in terms of local ties, the Wakefield one because it splits Ossett and the Bradford three for the reasons already discussed. You're going to get some bad features of any plan (and splitting Ossett is not that easy to avoid) but that is quite a lot, especially in my view because of the concentration around the edge of Bradford proper. I will admit to slight hyperbole, but I do think they're a lot worse than you're admitting (again, it's because of the repeated nibbling at Bradford proper: being divided into two constituencies plus lots of little bits is bad for the representation of what is essentially, in terms of the numbers, a three constituency city). And they, like taking Oscott out of Birmingham, are clearly a consequence of not splitting wards. I know: I've played with both areas and I can't see why you would consider either unless that's what you were prioritising. |
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Post by greatkingrat on May 12, 2016 19:01:44 GMT
I think putting Oscott into an Aldridge seat slightly fails the livewithableness test. Personally, I can just about live with being in an Aldridge seat, but being in an orphan ward has democratic disadvantages, and more importantly it would mean three split communities because Oscott ward includes part of Kingstanding, part of Perry Common and part of Perry Beeches. (Local people continually complain about the use of the M6 as a boundary, but it continues because of the numbers.) There is a clue to the nature of the ward in its name: Oscott is not a real place, and even "Old Oscott" as shown on maps is rarely used by local people. The ward boundaries in Birmingham, as they are in a lot of places, are designed for internal use only. There are only a few places where they accurately divide communities, though this will improve after the ongoing ward review. The BCE has continually been disingenuous in advocating for the primacy of wards in redistricting, but their propaganda has generally worked, and made it difficult even for MPs, who are the lawmakers after all, to get them to change their mind. I don't think the orphan ward argument works in somewhere like Birmingham. Oscott has 17k voters, by definition it is going to form a significant part of whatever constituency it ends up in. If Oscott was divided into three 6k single member wards would that suddenly make it more acceptable to move? |
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Post by greenchristian on May 12, 2016 19:18:10 GMT
I'd ask the question - what is wrong with/the problem with ward splitting - at all? (and I mean just that, not assumptions about what communities wards may represent) Absolutely nothing. Yes, splitting rural wards often means splitting a natural community in half, but then in rural areas, you don't gain anything by ward splitting. In large urban areas, however, wards rarely align well with natural communities. in Coventry, for example, it would be easy to divide St Michael's ward five ways without breaking any community ties, whilst the Earlsdon area stretches across four different wards (and, incidentally, crosses a Parliamentary border). The boundaries are dictated more by the need to achieve parity of local government electorate than they are by the divides between different local communities. If you can achieve a satisfactory set of constituencies without splitting wards, then you might as well do so. But if you can't then splitting wards is usually better than ignoring one of the other criteria. |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 12, 2016 20:25:15 GMT
I don't think a "consistent" approach across the country is actually desirable. Why have the same standard on ward splitting in Wakefield - where an alternative and more widely recognized set of boundaries in the form of parishes exists - and in Inner London, where community boundaries are often (though, you know, not always) quite fuzzy and wards, provided they aren't too large, will serve as well or better as any other line the commission might draw?
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on May 12, 2016 22:09:21 GMT
I'd ask the question - what is wrong with/the problem with ward splitting - at all? (and I mean just that, not assumptions about what communities wards may represent) Absolutely nothing. Yes, splitting rural wards often means splitting a natural community in half, but then in rural areas, you don't gain anything by ward splitting. In large urban areas, however, wards rarely align well with natural communities. in Coventry, for example, it would be easy to divide St Michael's ward five ways without breaking any community ties, whilst the Earlsdon area stretches across four different wards (and, incidentally, crosses a Parliamentary border). The boundaries are dictated more by the need to achieve parity of local government electorate than they are by the divides between different local communities. If you can achieve a satisfactory set of constituencies without splitting wards, then you might as well do so. But if you can't then splitting wards is usually better than ignoring one of the other criteria. I think the argument applies equally well to rural areas. The natural community unit is, in most places, the vilage. Keep them intact and you could split wards with not a peep from most of those affected. |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 14, 2016 11:09:53 GMT
And you do, occasionally, get wards that split them and combine one half with one other place and the other half with another.
(And then there's the annoying issue of parishes containing several places that look entirely distinct on the map; and you'd need to ask a local how they feel to find out whether it matters if you split that parish.)
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Post by islington on May 14, 2016 13:28:11 GMT
My solution has been to form a seat with Lewes and part of Brighton. There's two or three ways of doing this, none of which are un-liveable-with. At this review, it'll be interesting to see how high the Commission sets the un-livable-with-ness bar :-) and whether they're consistent around the country. This consistency problem, when there are no objective standards, is one that the Commission has wanted desperately to dodge. I did this in my solution for Brighton & Hove and the surrounding area as well; this way I only had to add Queen's Park ward to Brighton Pavilion and rename the seat Brighton West (to be fair on Brighton East & Lewes); as for Hove, just add an outlying nearby suburb of Shoreham-by-Sea if you want to avoid adding any integral part or suburb of Brighton to it. I agree that the non-split solution here is to switch Brighton territory to the Lewes seat. I nominate Woodingdean, which nestles in a hollow in the South Downs and is almost totally separated from the rest of Brighton by higher ground. This means you can keep Queen's Park in the east Brighton seat, which helps because it contains the Kemptown area and allows you to retain the traditional name (maybe such things ought not to matter but they do). You can then have a Brighton Kemptown seat running from Queen's Park ward all the way along the coast to an undivided Seaford - the longest, stringiest seat ever witnessed, but just in quota at 71505 and it's held together by the south coast and by the A259 running the whole length of it. (We probably ought to be discussing this in the SE thread rather than here.) |
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Post by islington on May 15, 2016 9:54:56 GMT
The rules are set out in Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, but note that this is not the original Schedule 2; it is a new one that was introduced by section 11 of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. It's all on line and well worth a look. Rule 5 (1) states: A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such extent as they think fit— (a)special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency; (b)local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date; (c)boundaries of existing constituencies; (d)any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies; (e)the inconveniences attendant on such changes. I've been mulling over recent comments on this thread, with regard to ward-splitting, and I think the reason we are coming up with different answers may be that we are asking different questions. Question A: "How can we draw constituencies that have as much regard as possible to community ties?" If this is the question, then it may very well be true that ward boundaries, for all the reasons given, get in the way of a satisfactory map and they should therefore be ignored. As indeed, presumably, should other factors such as LA boundaries more generally (borough, district, county, &c) and minimum change. But this isn't the question I've been asking myself. I've been working on the basis of a question B: "Given the statutory rules, if I were in the shoes of the Boundary Commission, what should I recommend?" Now, while the legislation (an extract from which I've reposted above) gives the Commission a lot of latitude ("... may take into account, if and to such extent as they see fit ..."), meaning that the rules are not a straitjacket, it seems to me that a prudent Commission would take them into consideration as, at the least, a very broad Parliamentary hint as to the approach to be followed. And it is striking that community ties are not set out as a general principle; they are mentioned only in the context of minimum change (i.e. ties that would be broken by changing seats). So I think it would be a very bold Commission that decided, on the basis of these rules, that community ties should trump all other factors such as minimum change and local government boundaries (and note that the latter term is specifically defined to include wards). |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 15, 2016 14:07:08 GMT
That's still more than the law has to say about wards. The no-split-wards policy is completely commission-set and has no basis in the law.
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Crimson King
Lib Dem
Be nice to each other and sing in tune
Posts: 9,870
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Post by Crimson King on May 15, 2016 17:50:06 GMT
That's still more than the law has to say about wards. The no-split-wards policy is completely commission-set and has no basis in the law. and no basis in common sense. No one has yet made a cogent arguement why splitting wards is a bad thing |
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Post by islington on May 15, 2016 17:54:38 GMT
That's still more than the law has to say about wards. The no-split-wards policy is completely commission-set and has no basis in the law. Er ... Well, actually - "'Local government boundaries' are— (a) in England, the boundaries of counties and their electoral divisions, districts and their wards, London boroughs and their wards and the City of London, (b) in Wales, the boundaries of counties, county boroughs, electoral divisions, communities and community wards, (c) in Scotland, the boundaries of local government areas and the electoral wards into which they are divided under section 1 of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, and (d) in Northern Ireland, the boundaries of wards." This is para 9(3) of the new Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act, as laid down by the 2011 Act in place of the old Schedule 2. So "local government boundaries", as in Rule 5(1)(b), does indeed include wards. Moreover, I think the Boundary Commission could very fairly point out that its practice of using the ward as a basic unit is one that goes back over several past reviews, extending over many decades; and that if Parliament thought this was the wrong approach, it has had several opportunities over this period, most recently in 2011, to rewrite the rules accordingly. But Parliament has not done this; on the contrary, its latest revision of the rules specifically refers to wards as something the BCs may take into account. I agree that the law does not require a no-split policy, but I do think it gives the Commissions a very clear steer that wards are important; more so than 'local ties', which are mentioned only in the context of changes to existing boundaries. |
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Post by islington on May 16, 2016 7:07:57 GMT
That's still more than the law has to say about wards. The no-split-wards policy is completely commission-set and has no basis in the law. and no basis in common sense. No one has yet made a cogent arguement why splitting wards is a bad thing Well, in terms of the actual legislative rules under which the review is being conducted, then it's clearly a bad thing (see my post above). In terms of general principle - well, that's a different question. That's really asking "Never mind what the rules actually say. What do we think they ought to say, if we were writing them from scratch?" That's an entirely legitimate and sensible question. If you wanted to start a separate thread to address it, I'd probably contribute. |
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on May 16, 2016 7:30:03 GMT
Moreover, I think the Boundary Commission could very fairly point out that its practice of using the ward as a basic unit is one that goes back over several past reviews, extending over many decades; and that if Parliament thought this was the wrong approach, it has had several opportunities over this period, most recently in 2011, to rewrite the rules accordingly. But Parliament has not done this; on the contrary, its latest revision of the rules specifically refers to wards as something the BCs may take into account. I agree that the law does not require a no-split policy, but I do think it gives the Commissions a very clear steer that wards are important; more so than 'local ties', which are mentioned only in the context of changes to existing boundaries. The previous reviews where the BCE had a no split policy were carried out when there was no 5% rule, so the problems caused by using very large wards as building blocks did not arise (or only arose in that large disparities appeared between electorates of constituencies in the same city -- there are some examples from the Fifth Review in Leeds). That there is no case in the law that the BCE should put wards on a pedestal above the other statutory criteria (which is what they did in the zombie review, and is what you are advocating now) is clear from the fact that the other three Commissions have all abandoned this policy. The BCE should follow suit. We (by and large) are not proposing ignoring ward boundaries, just choosing to split a handful of wards so that other criteria can be better applied. |
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Post by islington on May 16, 2016 9:04:54 GMT
Moreover, I think the Boundary Commission could very fairly point out that its practice of using the ward as a basic unit is one that goes back over several past reviews, extending over many decades; and that if Parliament thought this was the wrong approach, it has had several opportunities over this period, most recently in 2011, to rewrite the rules accordingly. But Parliament has not done this; on the contrary, its latest revision of the rules specifically refers to wards as something the BCs may take into account. I agree that the law does not require a no-split policy, but I do think it gives the Commissions a very clear steer that wards are important; more so than 'local ties', which are mentioned only in the context of changes to existing boundaries. The previous reviews where the BCE had a no split policy were carried out when there was no 5% rule, so the problems caused by using very large wards as building blocks did not arise (or only arose in that large disparities appeared between electorates of constituencies in the same city -- there are some examples from the Fifth Review in Leeds). That there is no case in the law that the BCE should put wards on a pedestal above the other statutory criteria (which is what they did in the zombie review, and is what you are advocating now) is clear from the fact that the other three Commissions have all abandoned this policy. The BCE should follow suit. We (by and large) are not proposing ignoring ward boundaries, just choosing to split a handful of wards so that other criteria can be better applied. Well, in the first place, although you yourself, YL, may not be suggesting the wholesale ignoring of ward boundaries, some other contributors definitely are. And yes, if you are advocating the splitting of a very limited number of wards, very much on an exceptions basis where it results in a markedly better map in terms of the other criteria (LA boundaries, minimum change, &c), then I accept that there's a perfectly good case to be made for this. But it needs to be limited: keeping to the Birmingham city boundary, for instance, needs at least three ward splits in Birmingham, probably four, and at least one more in Dudley - and in the last case, a terrible community-dividing boundary in Stourbridge as well. (Thus splitting wards AND dividing a community, a la BCS zombie review.) I accept that I am advocating a non-split policy, but not that I am setting it above all other criteria. To my mind, it carries the same weight as other factors such as geographical considerations (size, shape, &c), respecting LA boundaries and minimum change. To be specific, this means - I don't create an awkward or ungainly seat unless I need to
- I don't cross an LA boundary unless I need to
- I don't alter an existing seat unless I need to
- And I don't split a ward unless I need to.
The only difference is that the overall terms of the review oblige me, despite my best endeavours, constantly to create seats that are less than optimal in shape, &c; or that divide LAs; or that alter existing seats. But they do not oblige me to split wards, except in a tiny handful of instances. And that's the reason I so seldom split wards, not because I'm giving wards priority over everything else.
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Post by andrewteale on May 16, 2016 9:21:23 GMT
There are a couple of places in my North West proposal where I have a choice between splitting a ward or drawing one or more seats which cross the Greater Manchester county boundary. I can split Golborne and Lowton West (which, as the name suggests, is not the most coherent of wards) between Leigh and Makerfield in order to have three seats entirely within Wigan, or I can move Orrell into the West Lancashire seat. I can split Stepping Hill (something which has been suggested many times before on this forum and its predecessor) in order to respect the Greater Manchester/Cheshire boundary, or I can have two seats crossing that boundary in the Stockport area.
It's a matter of taste which you prefer. Do you want to split two wards, or do you want to have four seats crossing the Greater Manchester boundary where only one is required? My view is that in these particular cases, splitting those two wards is preferable; but I'll see what the BCE come up with before deciding what I'm going to submit to them.
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Post by minionofmidas on May 16, 2016 10:14:18 GMT
in place of the old Schedule 2. So "local government boundaries", as in Rule 5(1)(b), does indeed include wards. Moreover, I think the Boundary Commission could very fairly point out that its practice of using the ward as a basic unit is one that goes back over several past reviews, extending over many decades Meh.  Though that still doesn't really afford any legal basis for prioritizing wards over districts. (Really bizarre that what's still the legal document doesn't mention UAs and MetB's in any way, relying on some definition of county for these purposes from some yet other statute presumably. And really notable that it doesn't list parishes at all. How can you seriously define "local government boundaries" as not including parishes!?) The second is, of course, what they actually did point out and I was very well aware of. |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 16, 2016 10:18:31 GMT
Oh, and they do list County Electoral Divisions! I thought, five years ago at the last review, that someone should really just for exercise's sake try drawing the shire counties without being allowed to split those. Preferrably after they've been redrawn to all be three seaters.  |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 16, 2016 10:29:35 GMT
]The previous reviews where the BCE had a no split policy were carried out when there was no 5% rule, so the problems caused by using very large wards as building blocks did not arise (or only arose in that large disparities appeared between electorates of constituencies in the same city -- there are some examples from the Fifth Review in Leeds). My particular favorite is Birmingham, actually. At the 4th review they had 11 seats out of 40 wards, so 4 of these constituencies were only 3/4 the size of the others. At the 5th review, the entire West Midlands (which had 29 seats) was worth 27.58 seats, rounding up to 28. Brum was worth 10.31, the Black Country (13 seats) was worth 11.87, and Coventry/Solihull was worth 5.39. Someone at the Commission then hit on the idea that if you abolished the seat in Brum, you could fashion evenly sized constituencies in the city and also do a fairly minimum changey map in the Black Country and not have to deal with their horrible accents much (and minimum change Coventry and Solihull as well). Total win-win situation apart from the resulting overrepresentation! |
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Post by islington on Sept 3, 2016 16:21:23 GMT
The previous reviews where the BCE had a no split policy were carried out when there was no 5% rule, so the problems caused by using very large wards as building blocks did not arise (or only arose in that large disparities appeared between electorates of constituencies in the same city -- there are some examples from the Fifth Review in Leeds). That there is no case in the law that the BCE should put wards on a pedestal above the other statutory criteria (which is what they did in the zombie review, and is what you are advocating now) is clear from the fact that the other three Commissions have all abandoned this policy. The BCE should follow suit. We (by and large) are not proposing ignoring ward boundaries, just choosing to split a handful of wards so that other criteria can be better applied. Well, in the first place, although you yourself, YL, may not be suggesting the wholesale ignoring of ward boundaries, some other contributors definitely are. And yes, if you are advocating the splitting of a very limited number of wards, very much on an exceptions basis where it results in a markedly better map in terms of the other criteria (LA boundaries, minimum change, &c), then I accept that there's a perfectly good case to be made for this. But it needs to be limited: keeping to the Birmingham city boundary, for instance, needs at least three ward splits in Birmingham, probably four, and at least one more in Dudley - and in the last case, a terrible community-dividing boundary in Stourbridge as well. (Thus splitting wards AND dividing a community, a la BCS zombie review.) I accept that I am advocating a non-split policy, but not that I am setting it above all other criteria. To my mind, it carries the same weight as other factors such as geographical considerations (size, shape, &c), respecting LA boundaries and minimum change. To be specific, this means - I don't create an awkward or ungainly seat unless I need to
- I don't cross an LA boundary unless I need to
- I don't alter an existing seat unless I need to
- And I don't split a ward unless I need to.
The only difference is that the overall terms of the review oblige me, despite my best endeavours, constantly to create seats that are less than optimal in shape, &c; or that divide LAs; or that alter existing seats. But they do not oblige me to split wards, except in a tiny handful of instances. And that's the reason I so seldom split wards, not because I'm giving wards priority over everything else.
I've been looking back over this old discussion and I think it's fair to say that I've developed my views over the last few months. It's not so much that I've changed my opinion about ward-splitting; it's more that I now have a much better understanding of what can be achieved without it. This is very largely thanks to other contributors to the forum: in particular, ASV and YL, who demonstrated in Glasgow and Sheffield respectively what could be achieved without dividing any wards at all. Back in May, I'd have said that ward-splitting was best avoided where reasonably possible; but in a handful of cases (although fewer than I expected when I first started) I'd have accepted that there was no realistic alternative. But it's become clear, over the months, that even in the most difficult areas, there is always a way (at least, at this review; another time the numbers will be different and it might be another story). So, this time at least, I've come round to an approach of eschewing ward splits everywhere - the UK can be divided into 600 non-split seats that are all legal, contiguous and workable. The overwhelming majority of seats, drawn on this basis, I feel are perfectly acceptable; but even the least satisfactory are no worse than Lancaster, Shipley, Cumbernauld, &c on the current map. And there it is. I embarked on this process, back in February, in the expectation that ward-splitting would be fairly common. And now, in September, I've emerged as a non-split diehard. (But this is not a prediction of what the Boundary Commissions will do.) |
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