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

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Local Information Systems network event

On 29^th January, Communities and Local Government hosted a network event on local information systems designed to enable colleagues to learn from one another’s experience and consider the future of local information systems.

The event was well attended by a range of organisations from across the country including the ONS, Communities and Local Government, the Environment Agency, the West Midlands Regional Observatory, the Black Country Observatory, a number of Local Authorities, in addition to several consultancies.

Making information more accessible

InstantAtlas maps

How to make complex information available to a wider audience and how to make it more easily understand? Those were questions being considered in Coventry this week.

On Tuesday 20th January, Coventry City Council hosted a meeting designed to share ideas on how regional partners were using software to make their information more readily available.

The main focus of the event was Geowise’s InstantAtlas tool, which is used by many public sector organisations to provide a nice clear visual interpretation of the data they hold.

Questionnaire on benefits of local information systems

This questionnaire is part of a research project, commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government, to investigate the way users of local information systems benefit from the data and statistics the systems provide. The aim of the questionnaire is to obtain information about how you use the system and the way it helps you.

West Midlands sub-regional information sources

If you are looking for specific data or information about one of the sub-regions, in addition to our Resource Catalogue on wmro.org, you might also like to try one of the sub-regional intelligence units.

Here is a list of some of them to help you track down the information that you need.

• Herefordshire Partnership
• Worcestershire Research & Intelligence Unit
• Warwickshire Observatory
• Black Country Observatory
• Staffordshire Observatory

In addition to these, many of the local authorities also have intelligence or research units that can provide data and statistics. I’ve previously looked at one, Research Sandwell, in an earlier posting.

If you have other sources of sub-regional information that are not listed here, why not post a comment to let others know about it. And of course, you can always submit details of any research and data sources relevant to the West Midlands to the resource catalogue, thereby making it even easier for others to track down!