Population Summit

The partners of the Highland Wellbeing Alliance are holding a Population Summit on Tuesday (16 May) at Council Headquarters, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness. A keynote speaker is Tom McCabe, Scottish Finance Minister who is also responsible for public sector reform.

The aim of the conference is to identify how the various agencies, working with the Scottish Executive, can best serve Highland communities in meeting the needs and opportunities arising from significant growths in inward migration and the ageing population profile.

The summit will be told that the Highland population has risen to 213,590, 2,250 more than mid-year estimates of 2004 and 4,670 since the last Census in 2001. The age breakdown for Highland is:- 18.5% under 16; 64% 16-64; and 17.5% 65 years and over.

Deaths still outnumber births (2,245 compared to 2,174 over last year) although the number of births has risen for three years in a row, but the population is growing due to in migration.
 
There is no mandatory system of registering people and their address in the UK, so there is no simple way of quantifying migration.  Using information gathered from National Insurance Registrations (tracking from overseas) and National Health Service Central Register (moves within the UK) there is an indication of a gained population from England and Wales of 2,406 each year - 4,328 moving in each year and 1,923 moving out, with the biggest net gain in the 35-39 year old group. 

National insurance registrations do not tell us about the length of stay, type of employment or whether the person is registering as part of a family unit.  Registrations 2001 to 2005 do show:
• An increase from 255 inward migrants in 2001-2 to 1630 in 2004-5;
• Inverness accounts  for 40% of inward migration;
• Most registrations are in the economically active age groups with the 18-24 age group accounting for 45% of registrations and 25-34 age group accounting for 37% of registrations;

• The origin of inward migration over the four years has changed with more than half of registrations in 2004-5 from the new Accession states (948 in total).  Over the four year period 40% of the registrations are from people from Accession states (1,305 in total);
• The indication from DWP is that for 2005-6 inward migration from the Accession states has increased further.  Highland information is not yet available, but for the HIE area over 3000 inward migrants registered in that year, with 69% from Poland.  Most (82%) are aged 18 to 34 years;
• There are 627 pupils who do not have English as the first language.  This is nearly a 50% increase since 2004.  The main language backgrounds of these pupils are German, Polish, Bengali, Cantonese and Spanish with Tagalog (Philippines) and Thai also being fairly common.   Across the region, children of school age speak 58 different languages (as the language of their family other than English or Gaelic).