National Records of Scotland

Preserving the past, Recording the present, Informing the future

User Guidance and Support

User Guidance and Support

Given ongoing interest and demand from users, NRS funded work to develop a package of support and tools to help interested users to produce their own sub-council area projections. This work was delivered in partnership with Professor Ludi Simpson and Dr Alan Marshall at Edinburgh University.

What do I need to produce my own sub-council area projections?

If interested in producing your own sub-council area projections, NRS recommend the use of POPGROUP software. This is an Excel-based system and is the industry standard in Britain for demographic forecasting within Council Local Plans. For more information about POPGROUP and how to purchase the software, please contact Edge Analytics.

What help is available?

User guidance for producing sub-council area projections – provides detailed, step-by-step, guidance on how to develop and produce your own projections using POPGROUP.

Instructional Videos – information on key demographic concepts and tutorials on how to produce local area population projections in POPGROUP.

Data utility tool – This helps users to aggregate official statistics to the sub-council areas of interest and to prepare the POPGROUP input files using these aggregated data.

Training – delivered in 2017 and again in 2019 to support users develop knowledge in demographic methods, and training in using POPGROUP to produce their own sub-council area projections. Edge analytics hold training events twice a year in Manchester and Leeds. Further information can be found on their website.

Do you use sub-council area projections?

We are interested to hear from users on the benefits of these products and sub-council area projections. Providing a case study will help us to further understand how this training has been used, and encourage further use of the support packages available by other users. It will also help us to assess the need for continued work in this area. If you are willing to provide a case study, please contact [email protected]

Keep up-to-date

If interested in receiving updates about population projections, including any work related to sub-council projections, please register your interest in these statistics using ScotStat.

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