Tell us what you think of us…

The Observatory’s annual customer satisfaction survey is now officially underway. If you haven’t already received an invitation by email to take part, then we welcome you to take part in the survey.

The survey closes on Friday 17th July.

You can also sign up to receive our newsletters and invitations in future.

West Midlands: Fit for the Future?

On 21st July, from 5pm to 7pm, the Observatory is holding a short drinks reception in central Birmingham to launch our book, “West Midlands: Fit for the Future?”

The book comprises ten chapters, written by ten different authors, reflecting their personal views on how the region can best place itself in readiness for the economic upturn, as well as highlighting any potential obstacles.

Our ultimate aim is to stimulate debate, promote discussion and influence policy on the future growth of the region. The focus is on the future prosperity of the West Midlands, rather than on the effects of the recession, exploring the region’s ability to maximise its potential as we move out of the downturn.

At our annual conference on 20th October, delegates will be encouraged to discuss and debate the issues raised in the book, and help develop an evidence-based action plan for the region.

If you would be interested in attending the launch event, please email info@wmro.org or call 0121 202 3250.

Draft new menu structure for wmro.org

It’s just over 12 months since the re-launch of the Observatory’s website www.wmro.org. Since the re-launch last year, our range of research has widened and there is a new focus on particular themes.

To try and help visitors to our website more easily find the research and data they want, I’m considering how best to restructure the menu navigation.

To help in this, I’d really value your feedback on a proposed new menu structure for the website.

Launch of the first Place Survey results

Results of the first Place Survey were launched today providing information on people’s perceptions of their local area and the local services they receive.

The survey collects information on 18 national indicators for local government, used to measure local government performance for 152 county councils, metropolitan district councils, London boroughs and unitary authorities.

Communities Secretary John Denham said the results of the Place Survey—based on more than 500,000 people’s views and perceptions about where they live—demonstrates the importance of listening to local people and what they want for their local area.

Crowdsourcing policy, visualising debate and evolving consultation

I attended a session on crowdsourcing public policy at the recent LocalGovCamp event, an unconference for local government held in Birmingham.

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a task traditionally performed by employees or contractors and opening it out to a large group of people. It’s mass collaboration to collectively achieve a task or refine something that already exists into something better.

David Price led an interesting session on crowdsourcing policy, demonstrating how Debategraph—a global debate map—can be used to:

• Set up a policy debate
• Open the debate to enable others to collaborate
• Graphically visualise the issues and inter-relationships within a debate
• Share and re-use the debates both on and offline

Low carbon economy to face climate change

The UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) were published last week. These projections deliver climate information forecasts for the UK and its regions. The purpose of the projections is to provide relevant evidence that can help society and the environment cope with climate change.

The key findings confirm that climate change is a real and challenging issue to face:

“All areas of the UK get warmer, and the warming is greater in summer than in winter. There is little change in the amount of precipitation (rain, hail, snow etc) that falls annually, but it is likely that more of it will fall in the winter, with drier summers, for much of the UK. Sea levels rise, and are greater in the south of the UK than the north.”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will lead a programme of action to tackle climate change based on the following five fronts:

Britain’s got (hidden) talent

New reseach has shown that two-thirds of UK workers with specialist skills are not using them in their professional careers.

The Western European Location Skills Audit undertaken by Oxford Intelligence covered eight ‘hard-to-find’ skill sets in ten countries.

The research showed that the UK ranks first in the Location Skills Index and either first or second in Technical IT, Engineering, Financial Services and Food Technologies.

UK Climate Projections 2009

UKCP09 report

Today saw the publication of the long awaited UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09).

UKCP09 is the fifth time such climate information has been produced for the UK.

Funded by Defra, and based on sound science and projections provided by the Met Office, UKCP09 aims to meet the needs of a wide range of users who want to assess potential impacts of the future climate and explore adaptation options to address those impacts.

Unemployment rises again in the West Midlands

Unemployment in the region grew by a further 39,000 in the three months to April 2009 and has now reached its highest level since 1994.

Data released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that there are now just under quarter of a million people (249,000) out of work in the region giving an unemployment rate of 9.3%.

This is the highest unemployment rate of all the English regions and 2 percentage points higher than the national rate of 7.3%. At 9.3%, the unemployment rate has increased by nearly 3 percentage points on the same period a year ago making the West Midlands the worst affected region.

Celebrating our success

Since I joined the Observatory I’m more aware of what is said about the West Midlands.

On 3rd June I attended the conference Skills and Knowledge for Sustainable Communities in London and was very pleased to find that one of the case studies mentioned related to the regeneration of Attwood Green in Birmingham.

I think it is nice to get recognition from other regions, but I believe it is even nicer to deliver valuable learning from the work done in our region.

Observatory presents integrated policy model at key seminar

The Observatory presented its Integrated Policy Model to delegates at the third ESRC Complex Systems Research Seminar at Cranfield School of Management on 10th June 2009.

The seminar, Modelling for Policy Decisions, was organised by the London School of Economics Complexity Research Centre. The event featured presentations from leading academics on the importance of understanding the complex and dynamic interdependencies between factors.

Sandwell Health’s Other Economic Summit

When: 9th & 10th July 2009
Where: The pUBLIC, West Bromwich
How much: £50
More info: Download flyer (PDF, 95kb)

In the tradition of Sandwell Health’s Other Economic Summit (SHOES), this event will be examining how local issues can impact on world health and how global issues affect us.

Life sciences sector: tell the Government what it can do to help you succeed

Until the end of June 2009, West Midlands life sciences companies have an unprecedented opportunity to tell the Government what it can do to help them succeed, as medical and healthcare industry specialist MedilinkWM launches the Voices of Industry Campaign.

Designed to give companies in the Life Sciences sector a united voice and combined influence, the Voices of Industry Campaign aims to deliver a proposal of crucial initiatives that the Government could implement to make an immediate impact on the prosperity of the sector.

Using height layers and aerial photography to visualise developments and land use

Members of the Pan Government Agreement (PGA2) including Advantage West Midlands and other Regional Development Agencies, DEFRA, Natural England and Communities and Local Government have signed up for access to national layers of aerial photography and height layers from The Next Perspectives Consortium led by Infoterra UK Ltd.

Available to download (and for PGA licensed organisations), these layers can be used for a whole host of applications in supporting the work of the organisations. We hope this brief article exemplifies how other government departments are using the information and will provide some ideas on how to best exploit the data.

Shropshire electoral review using ArcGIS

What are electoral reviews and why do one?

Electoral reviews are undertaken periodically and their main aim is to ensure that ‘electoral equality’ is maintained, meaning that all councillors in a single authority represent approximately the same number of electors.

Reviews are needed if there has been a lot of new development in an area which results in an increase in the numbers of electors or (as in the case of Shropshire) if a new authority is formed which has a different number of councillors, to ensure there are fair arrangements in place for the first elections to the new authority.