Under new ownership…

The Observatory has now transferred to Marketing Birmingham

Office: Marketing Birmingham, Floor 4, Millennium Point, Curzon Street, Birmingham, B4 7XG.

Enquiries

Telephone 0121 202 5115
Email research@marketingbirmingham.com

Register with Marketing Birmingham

Update on our future

Following announcement of its abolition, Advantage West Midlands is seeking new ownership for the West Midlands Regional Observatory.

Advantage West Midlands is currently negotiating with their preferred bidder, Marketing Birmingham, on the Observatory’s behalf. The Agency’s Board will make a final decision on the outcome of those negotiations later in the year and no later than 1st September 2011.

In the interim, the Observatory will pause its operations and all staff have been redeployed into closure and transition activities at Advantage West Midlands. As such, you may not receive a reply to emails and phone calls. The website and blog will also not be updated during this period.

What does preferred bidder mean?

That Marketing Birmingham have exclusive rights to negotiate with Advantage West Midlands regarding the assets of the Observatory. There is no commitment on either side to a sale or transfer in advance of those negotiations.

What happens to the Observatory at the moment?

As the Agency is now focused on its closure, the Observatory’s operations have been temporarily paused. As such, we are not able to respond to enquiries and the website will not be updated.

Who do I talk to about this?

From Advantage West Midlands
Pat Jackson, tel 0121 503 3205, email patjackson [at] advantagewm.co.uk

From Marketing Birmingham
Tim Manson, tel 0121 202 5031, email Tim.Manson [at] marketingbirmingham.com

Draft Coventry and Warwickshire local economic assessment for consultation

Warwickshire County Council and Coventry City Council have carried out a sub-regional economic assessment. The draft economic assessment is now available and comments are invited.

The economic assessment and feedback form are available on the Warwickshire County Council website. There are also supporting papers on innovation, future sectoral growth, functional economic geography and business starts and growth.

Centre for Cities update annual index of UK cities

The Centre for Cities have published Cities Outlook 2011 (pdf, 2.4mb), identifying the UK cities best placed for a private sector-led recovery.

According to the report, five cities to watch are Milton Keynes, Reading, Aberdeen, Leeds and Bristol. These cities have high potential to create private sector jobs and are less vulnerable to public sector job losses and spending cuts.

The report identifies five vulnerable cities that may not gain the benefits of national economic recovery for some time: Sunderland, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Swansea and Newport.

Performance of large cities, including Birmingham, will remain crucial in providing private sector jobs.

Related links

• Download the full report (pdf, 2.4mb)
• Centre for Cities press release
• City by city data

Request for help from hyperlocals

I’m on secondment with Big Lottery Fund’s West Midlands team at the moment, helping them with their BIG Local work. If you know of any hyperlocal blogs or social media surgeries serving the following areas, please could you leave me a comment below, tweet to @thewmro or email me oliver.nicholls [at] wmro.org

• Bromford & Firs Estate (Birmingham)
• East Coseley (Dudley)
• Horsefair, Broadwaters, Greenhill (Kidderminster)
• Tividale  – Grace Mary to Lion Farm (Sandwell)
• Gobowen, St. Martins, Chell Heath (Shropshire)
• Chell Heath & Fegg Hays (Stoke on Trent)

Thank you

New issue of Local Government Association analysis and research bulletin

The December 2010 issue of the Local Government Association’s analysis and research bulletin (pdf, 328kb) is now available.

The bulletin highlights new research and statistics on:

• Employment, pay and workforce trends
• Transport
• Housing
• Education and children’s services
• Environment
• Health and social care
• Local government
• Europe
• Population and migration
• Culture, tourism and sport
• Crime and disorder
• Communities and place shaping

The current and previous issues are available on the Local Government Association’s website.

The future of the Observatory

Following the announcement of its abolition, Advantage West Midlands is seeking new ownership for the West Midlands Regional Observatory.

Advantage West Midlands received two expressions of interest to an open bidding process, which closed on 19th November. Marketing Birmingham has been selected as the preferred bidder and Advantage West Midlands is currently negotiating with them. The Agency’s Board is expected to make a final decision on the outcome of those negotiations at its January meeting.

Being the preferred bidder means that Marketing Birmingham have exclusive rights to negotiate with Advantage West Midlands re the assets of the Observatory. There is no commitment on either side to a sale or transfer in advance of those negotiations.

As the Agency is now focused on its closure, the Observatory will continue to operate, but at a greatly reduced capacity. As such, responses to enquiries may take longer than normal and our website (www.wmro.org) will be updated less frequently.

For more info, contact:
From Advantage West Midlands – Iain Neville tel: 0121 380 3563, email: iainnev [at] gmail.com
From Marketing Birmingham – Tim Manson tel: 0121 202 5031, email: Tim.Manson [at] marketingbirmingham.com

Local Enterprise Partnerships need to act to reinvigorate the private sector

Weaknesses in the structure of the West Midlands economy mean that it was hit particularly hard by the recent recession and is likely to see further job losses over the next five years.

Our latest briefing paper (pdf, 408kb), produced as part of our West Midlands Skills Assessment 2010, reveals that the West Midlands has a weaker private sector than other parts of the country. The West Midlands has poorer representation of higher value added activities and high growth firms with the potential to create new, skilled jobs.

As a result the West Midlands has seen its share of jobs in the public sector rise more rapidly than anywhere else in the country. It is particularly vulnerable to job losses from the spending cuts announced by the government.

We forecast that West Midlands Gross Value Added (GVA) will grow by only 8% (£8.8 billion) between 2010 and 2015 and there will be a net fall in employment of more than 38,000 people.

Endorsement of our Economic Inclusion research

Here’s a short video featuring Trudi Elliott, Chair of the West Midlands Economic Inclusion Panel, endorsing our economic inclusion research:

Watch on viddler

The State of Herefordshire Report 2010 – Seminar

Are you interested in the latest facts & figures about Herefordshire? Do you want to know what the county’s strengths and weaknesses are and what threats and opportunities there are?

If so you may be interested in a seminar organised by the Herefordshire Information & Research Network (HIRN) looking at The State of Herefordshire Report 2010 .

The report pulls together contextual information alongside performance indicators to give an overall picture of what is happening in Herefordshire under the broad themes:

• Population
• Economic Development and Enterprise (Local Economic Assessment)
• Health and Wellbeing
• Children and Young People
• Environment
• Safer Communities
• Stronger Communities

Max Bassett and Clem Attwood (Herefordshire Partnership Research Team) will be presenting on the on the report on Tuesday 14th December (9.30am) at the Town Hall, Hereford.

If you would like to attend please contact Clement Attwood on 01432 260893 or cattwood@herefordshire.gov.uk

Participating in culture and sport equivalent to a pay rise?

Research funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has suggested that the boost to individuals’ wellbeing achieved through weekly participation in sport is equivalent to £11,000 per year in household income. Cinema (c.£9,000) and concert (c.£9,000) attendance are not far behind in terms of annual ‘value’.

The research, Understanding the value of engagement in culture and sport (pdf, 291kb), which is based on a statistical analysis of the British Household Panel Survey, estimates the equivalent boost in household income required to achieve the same boost in wellbeing generated by cultural participation.

The work is something of a departure from previous estimates (such as those which calculate the monetary value of sport by referring to the cost of physical inactivity to the NHS) in that it factors in other influences on wellbeing such as socioeconomic status, thereby isolating the effect of culture.

As the authors note, the findings have the potential to guide policymakers, indicating the level of investment that may be warranted in interventions aimed at increasing participation in culture and sport.

Related links

• Understanding the value of engagement in culture and sport – full report (pdf, 291kb)
• Technical report (pdf, 1.11mb)
• DCMS ‘drivers, impacts and value’ research web page

International Open Data Hackathon – Birmingham

A combined Birmingham Open Data Hack Day and RHOK (Random Hacks of Kindness) will be held on December 4th 2010, hosted at Faraday Wharf, Aston Science Park, Central Birmingham.

For info, visit the open data day website.

Questions/comments to bodaceacat at yahoo.co.uk

Sandwell Trends local information system

Sandwell Trends is a local information system providing data, intelligence and analysis about the people and places in Sandwell.

The website, produced by Research Sandwell, provides:

• A data warehouse which stores detailed data that you can interrogate.
• Mapping and charting tools.
• Topic pages on specific data topics.
• Briefings on various topics, including research methodology.
• Tools to compares with each other.

Home page: www.sandwelltrends.info

Place Survey themed page

Making the CASE for culture

Last month saw the culmination of a Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) project to bring together a range of statistics and figures on the impact of culture at local, regional and national level. In addition to individual summary reports for each English region, you can download recent data on:

• Economic impact (xls, 6.7mb) – employment, turnover etc. within cultural organisations.
• Investment data – levels of public/private investment in capital (xls, 1.8mb) and non-capital (xls, 7.9mb) cultural projects.
• Tourism data (xls, 613kb) – overnight visits by domestic tourists, visits to visitor attractions etc.
• Education data (xls, 4.9mb) – number of Higher Education students for cultural subjects etc.
• Engagement data (xls, 915kb) – levels of participation in cultural activity.
• Physical assets data (xls, 1.3mb) – count, percentage and density of cultural assets.

Notably, some of the spreadsheets also contain wider demographic data that gives a useful hint as to the kind of analyses users could undertake.

For example, the working age population data for each local authority and region (contained in the investment spreadsheets) allows users to calculate investment per head of working age population (or per 10,000 of working age population as in the summary reports) without having to hunt high and low for the population data separately!

For further advice on how to use the data contact CASE (case [at] culture.gsi.gov.uk). Alternatively, feel free to contact us here at the Cultural Observatory (lauren.amery [at] artscouncil.org.uk / tel 0121 631 5705).

Related links

• CASE regional insights webpage
• West Midlands summary report (pdf, 299kb)

Notes

‘CASE’ is a joint DCMS research programme involving Sport England, Arts Council England, English Heritage and Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA).

The definition of ‘culture’ used in the research focuses on those sectors most relevant to the CASE partnership, consisting of Arts Council England, English Heritage, Museums, Librarires and Archives Council and Sport England. So, for example, while data on tourism can be downloaded separately, tourism sector organisations such as hotels and restaurants have not been factored into ‘CASE sector’ analyses.

Office for National Statistics West Midlands newsletter September-October 2010

This is the last newsletter from ONS West Midlands – the regional statistician service ceased in the West Midlands as of 21 October 2010.

The newsletter contains information on statistical consultations together with recent and planned ONS publications that might be of interest to you.