The approach to GTAAs

1
The approach to GTAAs

• Pat Niner
• Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
• University of Birmingham

2
Presentation plan

• The source of material drawn upon
• Planning a GTAA
• Usual methods used
• Survey work and challenges
• Estimating pitch requirements and challenges
• Implications and some things to look for in GTAAs

3
Sources of material for presentation

• Drawing on my own experience
• carrying out GTAAs in SW Hertfordshire,
  Leicestershire, Shropshire/Herefordshire/ Powys,
  Birmingham/Coventry/Solihull
• benchmarking GTAAs in the East, South East and
  South West
• more general research on Gypsy and Traveller
  accommodation issues

4
Planning a GTAA (consultants view)

• Guidance and good practice
• CLG Guidance was in draft form between February
  2006 and October 2007
• it is non-prescriptive
• it doesnt go into detail on methods
• GTAAs are not always published for sharing good
  practice

5
Planning a GTAA (consultants view)

• The clients brief
• all slightly different
• core around needs assessment, but different
  weight to other aspects, eg health and education
• some more prescriptive than others
• The nature of the Study Area
• number of LAs
• geographical scale
• types of Travellers and accommodation

6
Usual methods used

• Analysis of secondary data
• literature review
• Caravan Count for context and trends
• LA records on site provision, planning
  applications, unauthorised encampments, site
  management etc
• Stakeholder interviews
• perception of issues
• hard information

7
Usual methods used

• An interview survey with Gypsies and Travellers
• usually a combination of tick-box questions for
  quantitative analysis and open questions for
  feel
• last 20-30 minutes
• More qualitative work with Gypsies and Travellers
  depth interviews or focus groups (optional)

8
Survey work and challenges The sample

• Determining sample size
• Identifying sites/locations
• authorised sites usually straightforward
• unauthorised more problematic
• housed Gypsies and Travellers real problem
  sometimes re numbers and danger of bias
• Identifying individual respondents
• volunteer bias?

9
Survey work and challenges The questionnaire(s)

• Normal to use several versions of a questionnaire
  to suit different present accommodation
• There is a lot of question borrowing
• Need to build in key questions for the needs
  assessment
• Need to frame questions so that they are
  understood as intended
• Involvement of Gypsies and Travellers is important

10
Survey work and challenges The fieldwork

• Can be sheer practical, logistical problems
• Choice of interviewers
• community interviewers, professional
  interviewers, researchers, people who work with
  Gypsies and Travellers
• Interviews can take place in some odd situations
• Confidentiality is obviously vital often
  anonymous

11
Estimating residential pitch requirements

• Approach as in any needs assessment is to
  identify elements of need and supply, difference
  is requirement for new pitches
• Need
• overcrowding/concealed households/family
  formation
• unauthorised developments
• unauthorised encampments
• movement, including from houses to sites
• other

12
Estimating residential pitch requirement

• Supply
• any unused pitches back into use
• any new pitches planned
• vacancies arising
• Requirement for additional pitches
• difference between need and supply for Years 1-5
• Years 5-10 usually a simpler approach based on
  family formation only

13
Estimating transit pitch requirements

• Less well developed approach
• Often much less specific and quantitative
• Broadly, aim to accommodate most of the caravans
  likely to be in the area which would otherwise be
  on transient unauthorised encampments
• Information taken from the Caravan Counts and/or
  LA records

14
Challenges to estimating pitch requirements

• Some philosophical issues what is need versus
  demand or aspiration
• At a technical level, there is great variability
  in the information used, the assumptions made and
  the way calculations are carried out each GTAA
  is essentially unique

15
Challenges to estimating pitch requirements

• Particularly problematic areas are
• establishing the base population (for grossing up
  from the sample)
• dealing with movement from housing to sites
• dealing with need from unauthorised encampments
• migration and mobility generally
• transit pitch needs

16
Implications

• Robustness is an ideal, and very hard to judge
• Both research/survey approach and the way in
  which needs are then estimated must be considered
• It is easier to say what might be better or
  worse, than what it right of wrong
• It is very easy to become obsessed important to
  retain a sense of proportion!