Start sharing public sector data online

Here’s a presentation I gave at an internal get-together with researchers at the Observatory last month.

My aim was to translate the core principles of the open data movement, and summarise the key policy developments over 2009–2010  into meaningful and immediately applicable things you can do now. I tried to tailor the presentation specifically to people working with data every day as part of their research work.

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View on Scribd | OpenDocument Presentation (1.56mb) | PowerPoint (1.9mb)

Hat tips: Much of this presentation is adapted from Chris Taggart‘s presentation on opening up local government data and the data publishing three-step by Richard Wallis.

The presentation also relates to helping non-technical staff contribute to open data initiatives by making small changes to existing working habits – the first three of Ed Summers’ five stars of open linked data:

★	make your stuff available on the web (whatever format)
★★	make it available as structured data (e.g. excel instead of image scan of a table)
★★★	non-proprietary format (e.g. csv instead of excel)
★★★★	use URLs to identify things, so that people can point at your stuff
★★★★★	link your data to other people’s data to provide context

Thousands of visits generated by West Midlands Open Weekend 2010 celebrations

A report launched today by the Cultural Observatory (in association with Arts Council England) has found that local events held in July as part of the London 2012 Open Weekend celebrations generated in excess of 10,000 visits and attracted a total audience of over 46,000.

Our report, London 2012 Open Weekend 2010 in the West Midlands: post-event survey summary report (pdf, 211kb) contains the results of survey research with a sample of event attendees.

Surveys asked whether people were visiting local areas specifically to attend events (as opposed to visiting areas for other primary reasons such as shopping, or visiting friends). Based on the results of this question, we estimated over 10,000 visits were directly generated by events.

How can small and medium businesses prepare against climate change?

Photo: Worcester bridge by Russell Trow

Climate change has an impact on businesses. Flooding, hot summers, droughts and severe storms and winds can damage business premises and disrupt suppliers and customers.

Here are just a few examples:

• Business directly impacted by the 2007 floods took an average of 26 weeks to return to normal operating capacity. Some small businesses can take up to two years to recover from a flood – and some do not survive.

• Rail commuters in Birmingham endured extensive delays on 17 July 2006 as the extreme heat caused railway lines to buckle. Many services from New Street Station in Birmingham had to be cancelled and some passengers had to wait more than two hours.

• The flooding in July 2007 was caused by a month’s rainfall in 1–2 hours and caused interruptions to electricity and water supplies, and significant disruption to road and rail networks.

• After the flooding in June and July 2007, insurers received 165,000 claims in the UK, estimated to total £3bn in insured damages. Economic and social costs were far higher, as not all costs to businesses can be insured.

The West Midlands Climate Change Adaptation Partnership knows that it is crucial that businesses understand the consequences of climate change. This is why they released a practical guide explaining how small and medium businesses in the West Midlands can save and make money from climate change (pdf, 357kb).

Planning and being prepared are the way forward as opposed to just reacting whenever disaster hits. This will allow businesses to save money in the long term, continue operations in spite of the weather and identify potential business opportunities.

The guide provides a series of questions that business should consider around:

• Insurance
• Premises
• People
• Utilities
• Information technology and security of data
• Suppliers, logistics and delivery and products
• Processes, stock and raw materials
• Agricultural and horticultural rural business
• Emergency contacts and important documents

The guide also provides examples of opportunities for small businesses, useful tools and contact details of regional support available.

Photo credit: Worcester bridge by Russell Trow.

Unemployment in West Midlands fallen but still not back to pre-recession levels

Updated monthly data on the West Midlands labour market were released today by the Office for National Statistics.

Key headlines

• Unemployment in the West Midlands has fallen — by 66,000 people over the last year, and 27,000 people in the last quarter. There are, however, 59,000 more unemployed people in the West Midlands than in February 2008.
• Unemployment has fallen faster in the West Midlands than anywhere else in the country over the last year and in the last quarter. However, unemployment rose more sharply here than elsewhere earlier in the recession, so essentially this is a rebalancing of employment levels.
• We’re not out of the woods yet. Employment levels have not yet reached their pre-​recession levels, and we’re expecting a significant loss of public sector jobs in the coming months, which could wipe out the recent drop in unemployment altogether.

Related links

• Read our full analysis of the latest data
• Dataset: proportion of working age population in West Midlands claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (xls, 220kb)
• Dataset: 18-24 year olds claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (xls, 220kb)
• Map: proportion of working age population in West Midlands claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance – by local authority district
• Map: proportion of working age population in West Midlands claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance – by ward

Place Survey abolished

The Place Survey, one of the largest surveys in Europe that was due to be conducted by local authorities this autumn, was formally abolished yesterday by Local Government Minister, Grant Shapps.

This follows on from the scrapping of Comprehensive Area Assessments by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles in June 2010.

Read the announcement on Communities and Local Government.

The generation gap: BME participation in culture found to be significantly influenced by age

New research funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport has helped to increase understanding of the factors influencing participation in culture.

Based on a statistical analysis of Taking Part 2007/08, the study, Understanding the drivers, impact and value of engagement in culture and sport (pdf, 575kb) suggests, for example, that:

• In the cases of visiting a heritage site, attending an arts event, or visiting a museum, young people from BME and non-BME groups were found to have a similar probability of engaging in culture, while among older people those from a BME group were less likely to engage in culture. For example, older ethnic minorities were found to be around half as likely to attend arts events as older people not from ethnic minorities.
• Households scoring ‘low’ on socio-economic measures were found to be 4 times less likely to engage in culture than those scoring high.
• Females were found to be 3 times less likely to participate in sport than males.
• Probability of participation in culture during adulthood is positively correlated with childhood participation levels.

While some of the trends highlighted in the study are familiar (and the subject of past research), the methodological approach taken by authors provides us with authoritative percentages and figures against known trends.

Sport England Active People Survey analysis tool updated and ready to be interrogated!

For those who haven’t tried it yet, the Sport England Active People Diagnostic is a website for viewing and investigating the results of the Active People Survey: an annual survey which captures levels of participation in sport (and culture) amongst over 16s at local, regional and national geographies.

The tool has recently been updated to include Active People Survey 3 (2008/09) data, which means is it possible to run analyses comparing sports participation trends over time (since 2005/06).

It’s worth noting that it’s also now possible to access the results of the (non-sport) cultural national indicators — NI 9 (library participation), NI 10 (museum/gallery participation) and NI 11 (art participation) — via the tool for the year 2008, but, as yet, the tool does not contain comparative data for these cultural indicators.

Once you’ve registered to use the tool, a good place to start is ‘cross-tabulations’ (via the ‘Interactive’ tab), which allows you to select which data you are interested in viewing / downloading.

Visit the Sport England Active People Diagnostic

What does ‘innovation’ mean for cultural organisations anyway?

Following a preliminary discussion paper, NESTA has now published its proposal for an ‘innovation framework’ for use by cultural organisations and funders. Based on case study research with the National Theatre and Tate, authors of Culture of Innovation: An economic analysis of innovation in arts and cultural organisations suggest that ‘innovation’ within cultural organisations can happen across four main areas: audience reach, artform development, value creation and business models.

As part of the research, there is a consideration of  audience development strategies employed by the National Theatre and Tate. This includes an interesting comparison between the demographics of Gallery users and those of online audiences; for example, Tate’s web visitors during one campaign period were more likely to be female / ethnically diverse / have lower incomes than ordinary Gallery visitors. It will certainly be interesting to note whether these trends hold true as more data of this nature begins to filter through.

Download report

Photo by Demarmels

Local tourism industries generate over 6% of the region’s total economic output

According to an analysis by the Tourism Intelligence Unit at Office for National Statistics, the economic output (‘GVA’) generated by West Midlands-based tourism businesses accounts for a relatively small proportion of overall regional GVA (6.2%) compared to other parts of the UK such as the South West (8.9%) and the North West (8.3%). However, given that under some definitions of the tourism sector (such as the narrower, DCMS definition used in our Culture & Prosperity report), tourism industries appear less important to West Midlands economic output, this new paper may cause a shift in perception to a certain extent.

Indeed, the paper (and its definition of the tourism sector) may trigger a reassessment of the importance of tourism to the national economy generally. For example, the finding that tourism contributes 7.1% of all GVA in the UK contrasts with a recent study commissioned by VisitBritain, which suggests the visitor economy directly generates 4.0% of UK GDP.

Notes: GVA and GDP measures are different and therefore not directly comparable, but in this instance, it was deemed useful to compare the two studies to explore different assessments of tourism contribution to the overall economy.

Download the full article

Photo by Martin O’Connell

New report confirms growth in local creative workforce

Recent work by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found a national and regional growth in the level of creative industries employment between 2006 – 2008. According to data sourced from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), employment in creative firms across England increased by 11% (compared to a 2% average growth in employment for all sectors). The level of creative industry employment growth in the West Midlands region (+19%) was relatively high compared to other regions and, in line with national trends, was more marked than the average increase for all sectors within the region.  

These findings confirm trends reported last year in our Culture & Prosperity: the economic role of culture in the West Midlands. Although the methodology and timeframe differed slightly across the two papers, the conclusion is the same: a regional growth in creative industry employment compared to the national creative industry average and compared to the average for all regional firms.

Unfortunately, as the author of the paper points out, there are continued issues around getting hold of more recent creative industries data. Both mainstream definitions of the creative sectors (DCMS evidence toolkit & Frontier Economics) use 2003 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes – rather than the newer 2007 codes.

From 2009, the data for the IDBR has been collected based on the current SIC 2007 codes, something which poses problems for cultural researchers in that the process of converting 2003 codes to 2007 codes leads to data that is not exactly comparable with pre-2009 data. This situation could be seen as problematic during the aftermath of a recession when a clear picture of the economic situation is particularly helpful.

Download the report and accompanying dataset

Notes: The ‘official’ definition of the creative industries sectors used by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) remains that documented in the DCMS Evidence Toolkit. The Frontier Economics definition, although widely known, remains experiential at this time. 

Photo by Dean Terry

Oracle summer 2010 newsletter out now

The summer edition of our Oracle newsletter (pdf, 404kb) is now available, rounding up our recent research.

Rosie Paskins, Chief Executive of the West Midlands Regional Observatory, introduces the newsletter with updates on how our research is being used and how we’re working hard to ensure local authorities, businesses and forthcoming Local Enterprise Partnerships can access and benefit from our research:

In what has been an interesting but rather unsettling few months for all those working in the public sector, the Observatory has continued to provide West Midlands decision makers with solid and reliable evidence on which they can base their decisions.

This summary of our work over the course of 2009-10 (pdf, 750kb) shows the many different ways in which Observatory research is being used.

Despite turbulence in local and regional government, the social and economic challenges facing the West Midlands remain. The Observatory continues to provide high quality research into the underlying causes of those challenges. In a recent survey of our users, partners told us that their satisfaction with the Observatory and its work is at a five year high, with nine out of ten users rating our research as independent and objective.

At present, we are working hard to ensure that local authorities, businesses and forthcoming Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are able to access our research and benefit from it. LEPs will almost certainly inherit new responsibilities around economic development, worklessness, skills and low carbon. The Observatory has a wealth of expertise in each of those areas, and we are used to working across local authority boundaries. So in a world of Local Enterprise Partnerships, we can provide important insight and an objective assessment of the facts, to help decision makers take tough policy decisions with confidence.

I hope you enjoy reading about our recent research. As ever, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Rosie Paskins
Chief Executive

Related links

• Register with us to receive newsletters
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• Oracle summer 2010 newsletter: web page or pdf, 404kb