Is Williams NUTS

 

When I saw the proposed new structure for Councils in Wales I thought it looked familiar.

The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, (NUTS), is a European Union standard for referencing the administrative divisions of countries for statistical purposes.

The United Kingdom is split into 12 NUTS1 areas and Wales is one of them. Wales is then subdivided into the NUTS 2 areas of West Wales and the valleys, which is in receipt of European convergence funding, and East Wales.  The rules of NUTS 2 is that the average population should be between 800,000 and 3 million so at the last review Wales could have been split into one, two or three NUTS2 areas but it was decided to stay with the two previously used.

Below NUTS 2 are the NUTS 3 areas made up of one or more local authorities and there are 12 of these, for those who have read the Williams report that number should look  familiar. The only difference with the Williams Commission is that in all their proposed options Ynys Mon and Gwynedd are merged, the keeping of Ynys Mon as a  separate NUTS 3 areas is highly anomalous, whilst other proposals involve removing Carmarthenshire from South West Wales and adding Swansea to Neath Port Talbot Bridgend leaving seven unchanged from their NUTS 3 boundaries in every proposed reconfiguration. The proposals consist of keeping 7, 8 or 10 unchanged NUTS3 areas.