ICE launches State of the Nation report

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) today launched its latest State of the Nation report and this year’s theme is ‘Low Carbon Infrastructure’. This report provides an interesting take on the low carbon debate coming from within the engineering industry.

As Paul Jowitt, ICE’s President says in his foreword:

“Many of the largest sources of carbon emissions are currently associated with the construction, operation, maintenance and use of infrastructure in particular in the energy, transport, water and waste sectors. Our inquiry suggests that many of the technologies and practices we need to create significant change in these sectors already exist, but their delivery is constrained by unfavourable investment and delivery conditions.”

Government ensures free access to some Ordnance Survey maps

Gordon Brown, Liam Byrne and Sir Tim Berners-Lee at the Smarter Government seminar at Downing Street, 17th November 2009

Photo of Smarter Government seminar by Downing Street

Some Ordnance Survey maps are to be made available to businesses and the public, as part of the Government’s drive to open up data to improve transparency.

Speaking at a seminar yesterday on Smarter Government in Downing Street, attended by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, the Prime Minister and Communities Secretary John Denham set out how the Government and Ordnance Survey, Great Britain’s national mapping agency, will open up its data relating to electoral and local authority boundaries, postcode areas and mid scale mapping information.

This data would be released for free re-use, including commercially.

2011 Census and migration statistics roadshows

The Office for National Statistics are holding a series of roadshows in December 2009 to communicate the latest work being carried out to improve population statistics through the 2011 Census and the Improving Migration and Population Statistics projects.

There’s an event in Birmingham on Thursday, 3rd December at the International Convention Centre.

The Census seminars will outline progress on planning and executing the 2011 Census and focus on the methodology for assessing coverage and subsequent quality assurance of the census estimates.

Diversity week in the West Midlands 16th-20th November 2009

Monday 16th November heralds the start of Diversity Week 2009, promoted by Advantage West Midlands in partnership with the West Midlands Employer Coalition.

Around 35 events are taking place across the West Midlands between 16th-20th November 2009, aiming to help businesses appreciate the real benefits of a diverse workforce.

Observatory featured in new Analysis of Place newsletter

We’re featured in the first issue of the Analysis of Place  newsletter, published quarterly by the Spatial Analysis Unit (SpAU) in Communities and Local Government.

The Spatial Analysis Unit is a multi-disciplinary unit of geographers, economists, statisticians and social reasearchers, and sits within the Analytical Services Directorate. One of the aims of this unit is to promote spatial analysis in government.

West Midlands employment rate stabilises

Latest labour market data published today by the Office for National Statistics shows that the West Midlands’ employment rate has stabilised at 70.0%.

The region’s level of unemployment has fallen by 14,000. However, this seems to be due to people becoming economically inactive rather than entering employment. Previous quarters saw many people in the region moving from economic inactivity to unemployment, mainly due to many of those who were looking after the family or home beginning to look for work, so this could represent a reversal of that trend.

The region’s rate of unemployment has fallen by 0.4% to 10.0%, but is still substantially higher than the England unemployment rate of 7.9%.

The claimant count of those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance has also stabilised at 186,100, with a slight increase of 800.

Shropshire to host Centre of Excellence for mental health and employment

Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health have announced nine new Centres of Excellence in supporting people who use mental health services into employment, including one in Shropshire.

Services in Central and North West London, Essex, Shropshire, Somerset and South West London have committed to being full partners in the programme. They will act as exemplars of how Individual Placement and Support (IPS) can be implemented in local areas across England. A further four areas have been invited as ‘emerging centres’.

Solihull wins national award for cross-sector partnership work

The Compact Plus for Solihull was among the winners at this week’s national Annual Compact awards.

Sir Bert Massie, Commissioner for the Compact, announced the winners at a ceremony in London, held during Compact Week.

Solihull won the Local Compact of the Year award for its attempts to reinvigorate a Local Compact agreement that was largely ignored. The Compact Plus for Solihull 2008-2013 (PDF, 725kb), an agreement to improve relations between the Solihull Partnership and the third sector, was officially launched in December 2008.

State of the Region dialogue on climate change published

We’ve published the State of the Region dialogue Challenge or opportunity? How to plan for Climate Change (PDF, 1.3mb).

This report aims to help decision makers understand how climate change will impact on their areas and also give practical ways of adapting to, and taking advantage of, the opportunities and challenges presented by climate change.

The report covers six policy themes:

• Built environment
• Natural resources (water, land use and food)
• Transport
• Health
• Energy and waste
• Business, skills and education

Consumers choose to spend their cash on cultural attractions when the going gets tough according to West Midlands Cultural Observatory

They said it would happen and according to research published this week by the West Midlands Cultural Observatory it is happening: the recession has caused consumers to be more selective about what cultural products and services they spend their cash on.

Evidence cited in the latest recession paper suggests that over the Spring and Summer months, people have been saving money on accommodation, but continuing to spend on visits to cultural attractions such as museums, historic houses and visitor attractions when visiting in the region.

Regional innovation scoreboard imminent

Most of the time we compare the relative performance of the West Midlands to that of other English regions, but how do we compare with other regions in the wider EU?

INNO Metric’s 2006 Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) (PDF, 644kb) made such comparisons, assessing data from over two hundred regions across twenty-five states of the EU to assess their relative performance in innovation. In a few weeks’ time, they will release an updated 2009 edition of the RIS using the latest available data to compare and contrast innovation performance across the EU.

Last Friday, we attended INNO Metric’s validation workshop in London to gain an understanding of the new RIS.

What does a sustainable city look like?

A couple of weeks ago I attended ‘Voices from the future 2020: how are we housed?’, an event organised by Sustainability West Midlands.

This is the first event in their ‘Voices from the future 2020′ series which develop themes from the report A low carbon vision for the West Midlands in 2020. The aim of this series is to stimulate thinking amongst decision makers in the West Midlands of the positive future we can have, and how to get there.

The main presentation, delivered by Stellan Fryxell, partner of Tenborn Architects in Stockholm, showed a great example of what a sustainable city looks like.

Volunteer work in the recession – a lost opportunity?

No increase in volunteering

New Citizenship Survey data published last week by CLG show volunteering levels have remained almost static over the past year in England.

Levels of formal volunteering at least once a month are unchanged since 2001.

This lack of increase in volunteering despite the rising levels of unemployment seems to confirm what many in the voluntary and community sector have been saying about a lack of funding and capacity to meet increased demand for volunteering opportunities.

Roundup of Census 2011 outputs event in Leicester

Last Thursday, I attended a Census 2011 outputs event.  It was hosted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Leicester, and covered a range of Census-related topics.

I’ve highlighted key points from the event in this post.

The biggest proposed change to the Census in 2011, compared to 2001, is to open up access to the data. ONS want to move away from static tables towards dynamic tables, such as data cubes, that allow researchers to interrogate data more.

West Midlands ‘output gap’ has risen to £15bn

The West Midlands’ economy is less productive than the national average, and the gap is growing, according to new research released by the West Midlands Regional Observatory.

In the 2009 ‘State of the Region’ report, the Observatory has revealed that compared to the UK average, the economic output gap of the West Midlands – caused by the region’s lower economic output per head of population – has risen from a figure of £10 billion in 2005 to a current estimate of £15 billion.