Worcestershire awarded grant to promote intergenerational volunteering

Worcestershire has been awarded part of a £5.5 million grant as part of a cross-government scheme to promote intergenerational volunteering. The Generations Together campaign aims to encourage meaningful interaction between young and old generations across the region.
Over the next two years £386,800 will be available for Worcestershire’s transferable skills project. This project aims to provide more than 700 community [...]

Place matters

A recent discussion between a panel of experts assembled by the Government Computing magazine and ESRI highlighted that the UK needs to make the most of  its location or geographical data.
Participants, including Brian Higgs from the Observatory’s Geographical Information group, believe that organisations need to encourage the sharing of location specific data in order to improve [...]

Inward investment: record high for West Midlands

In the period 2008 to 2009 the West Midlands region received 117 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, a record high since records began in 1991 (shown by the blue line in the graph below).

Places Handbook Pocket guide launched to enhance policy implementation

The Government Offices for the English Regions has launched the Places Handbook Pocket guide, an online set of tools, to assist Government officers (GOs) in implementing  policies effectively and efficiently across Local Authorities.
A key component of the guide is the delivery cycle, which focuses on analysis, planning, delivery and performance and how to utilise these processes efficently to achieve  targets in Local Authorities.

Observatory launches new book ‘West Midlands: Fit for the Future?’

A new book from the Observatory, West Midlands: Fit for the Future?, was launched yesterday.
The book aims to stimulate debate, promote discussion and influence policy on the future growth of the West Midlands region. The focus is on the future prosperity of the West Midlands, rather than on the effects of the recession, and exploring [...]

Black Country Observatory seeks secondee to manage the team

Our colleagues at the Black Country Observatory are currently advertising for a secondee to cover the maternity leave of the Observatory’s senior manager, Delma Dwight.
The secondment will be for six months, starting from 1st October 2009. The closing date for applications is Friday 31st July. Interviews will take place on Tuesday 11th August.
Get more details [...]

Rising unemployment: West Midlands is the worst affected region

The West Midlands has been hardest hit by the recession, has seen the biggest rise in unemployment and is the first region in England where the unemployment rate has topped 10%.
New Labour Market Statistics (PDF, 328kb) released on 15th July 2009 by the Office for National Statistics show the unemployment rate in the West Midlands increased [...]

Building a low carbon country

The transition to a low-carbon economy will be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. This plan sets out a route-map for the UK’s transition from here to 2020.
Ed Miliband MP, 15 July 2009

Ed Miliband, Secretary of State of Energy and Climate Change, yesterday launched  a national strategy for climate and energy.
The UK [...]

Tender for women’s enterprise research

The Women’s Enterprise Centre of Expertise has released a tender to conduct women’s enterprise research in the West Midlands.
The deadline for submissions is 21st July 2009.
Research rationale
There is currently a gap in regional women’s enterprise research which takes a strategic view of policy, documentary and research evidence, even though much has been done to promote [...]

Modelling population change in the West Midlands: call for information

How do you try to understand the changes that are happening in your populations? Have you developed a model to try to understand population change? If so, we would be interested to hear from you.
As part of our State of the Region dialogue on population change, we’re looking for regional examples of how people have [...]

Investment in higher level skills needed to kick start the region’s recovery

Investment in higher level skills is vital to kick start the region’s recovery from recession but the proportion of the workforce qualified to degree level or above is well below the national average, particularly in the private sector.
New research (PDF, 258kb) by the West Midlands Regional Observatory shows that overall investment in skills and training [...]

Views of life sciences sector delivered to Government

Following the recent call to the the life sciences sector to gather views on what Government can do to help them, a proposal of crucial initiatives that the Government can implement to make an immediate impact on the prosperity of the sector was delivered to the Office of Life Sciences (OLS) on Wednesday 1 July 2009.
It covers [...]

ONS Regional Trends report puts regions under the spotlight

Young people aged 16 and 17 in the West Midlands were more likely to not be in employment, education or training (NEET) than any other UK region in 2007.
This is just one of the findings of the latest annual ONS Regional Trends report.
Children and young people are the lead article in this year’s publication. There are also [...]

Observatory issues invitation to tender to support integrated policy model

The Observatory has released an Invitation to Tender (PDF, 320kb) today for provision of technical and analytical support for our Integrated Policy Model (IPM).
This is an exciting opportunity for external consultants to engage with the IPM, the first fully integrated spatial model developed to support regional, local and sub-regional organisations plan and monitor policies.
The IPM  is [...]

Regional perceptions indicator for the West Midlands

England’s glory or England’s shame – what’s your opinion of the West Midlands?
We all have perceptions about places and they shape what we do, where we go and how we invest.
Because of this we are now running a research project to find out what perceptions people have about the West Midlands, and how it compares with [...]