Birmingham is ‘best performing city’

According to the Cushman & Wakefield European Cities Monitor 2009, Birmingham is the ‘best performing city’ in the country in terms of improvement on last year’s ranking.
The influential survey of 500 of Europe’s largest companies shows Birmingham rising seven places from 21st to 14th as the best European city for business, overtaking Manchester in the [...]

Invitation to ONS 2011 Census outputs consultation event in Leicester

The next full census of England and Wales will take place in 2011. It includes a number of new approaches which will be evaluated during a rehearsal on 11th October 2009 with around 135,000 selected households in three local authority areas.
The Census Rehearsal will test, among other things, the questions being asked, the accuracy of [...]

West Midlands population increased to over 5.4 million in 2008

The population of the West Midlands grew to over 5.4 million in 2008, according to the latest population estimates released by the Office for National Statistics.
With a population of 5.411 million, the region’s population grew by 0.5% (29,000) on the preceding year.
Natural change (births minus deaths) was the most significant contributor to the growth at [...]

Summary of data, mashups and APIs event

Last Wednesday, I went to an event at Fazeley Studios in Birmingham to explore innovative, useful and important applications of data.
The event — titled Data, Mashups and APIs — was organised by Birmingham Social Media Cafe and sponsored by The Guardian, Barefoot Wine and Screen WM.
I won’t try and summarise the whole event. A huge [...]

Government awards grant to boost town centres

The government is making £3 million available to help areas hardest hit by the recession find creative ways to reduce the negative impact empty shops are having on the high street.
Coventry, Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall councils are each being given a grant of £52, 632.
The councils will use the grants as they [...]

MG Rover workers: what happened next?

The Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham obtained funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to conduct the study Ex-MG Rover workers: 3 years on (PDF, 989kb).
The study consisted of a  survey of 204 ex-workers conducted via telephone in April 2008, along with in-depth interviews of 30 workers and 30 local and regional practioners [...]

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).

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 [...]

LocalGovCamp unconference for local government

LocalGovCamp is an unconference for local government being held in Birmingham at Fazeley Studios on 20 June 2009.
The event will be will be a gathering of people interested in how local government needs to adapt to a world of social networks and data sharing.

Latest gross disposable household income estimates indicate metropolitan West Midlands is UK’s poorest sub-region

The 2007 Regional Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI) (Word, 411KB) estimates are released today by the Office for National Statistics.
Indexed GDHI per head (where UK=100) for the West Midlands in 2007 was 90, stable in comparison to the revised 2006 index value of 90.
GDHI per head in the West Midlands rose from £12,700 in 2006 to [...]

Urban bird spotting

The OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) project in the West Midlands is currently out and about putting small coloured and metal rings around the left leg of 12 species of birds in Shire Country Park and Sutton Park. This is part of a wider study into the biodiversity of the region.
By finding out where these marked [...]

Jobseekers allowance claimant statistics give cause for concern in Birmingham

Four of Birmingham’s parliamentary constituencies are listed amongst the five worst in the UK in terms of the proportion of the resident working-age population claiming Jobseekers allowance, according to figures for December 2008 released by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The constituencies are Birmingham Ladywood (9.9% up 1% year-on-year), Birmingham Hodge Hill (8.3% up 1.5%), Birmingham Sparkbrook & [...]

West Midlands local development annual monitoring reports

The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires local planning authorities to regularly monitor planning policies that affect the planning and development of their areas.

Each council is required to produce an Annual Monitoring Report (AMR) which is published in December to assess the effectiveness of policy in the Local Development Framework.
These show whether the progress [...]

Graduate recruitment and the ‘credit crunch’

According to a student briefing recently issued by the University of Birmingham’s Careers and Employability Centre, prospects for graduates seeking employment remain positive in the downturn.
Graduate recruiters and employers who actively recruit University of Birmingham students within a range of sectors and professions report that they intend to continue to recruit graduates at the same level as [...]

West Midlands produced 3rd strongest regional growth in England, according to latest GVA per head figures

The 2007 Regional and 2006 Sub-Regional Gross Value Added (GVA) data are released today by the Office for National Statistics. Indexed GVA per head (where UK=100) for the West Midlands in 2007 was 86.0, a marginal decrease from the revised 2006 index value of 86.1. GVA per head in the West Midlands rose from £16,300 [...]