Introduction
The State of the South West is a comprehensive review of the South West of England's economic, social, environmental and cultural life. It describes the current position and trends and, without making policy recommendations, helps set an informed context in which policy for the region can be developed. It has been written by a wide partnership, drawing upon a broad range of expertise within the region.
This report is a collaborative exercise involving the major regional organisations responsible for public services and other strategic contributors such as the Environment Agency, the Public Health Observatory, Culture South West and South West Forum all working as part of the Observatory partnership.
State of the South West has been produced primarily to inform policy and decision makers, at local and regional levels, in the public sector. It is a resource that will support the work of senior representatives in regional and local government bodies, and for elected members. However, the scope of the report and its contribution to regional intelligence has a far broader potential. It will be equally useful for business, education, voluntary, community, and funding organisations, and not least for the public; indeed all stakeholders with a part to play in shaping the region's future. Although the report is regional in focus - not least for reasons of size - the Observatory is very conscious of the need for understanding local difference. More detailed local authority data are available from the Observatory web site at www.swo.org.uk.
The South West continues to be a growing region and is performing well on a broad range of measures. The region's population has now passed 5 million and this increase continues to be entirely due to migration. There have been gains across all age groups apart from a continued slight loss of student age people. In terms of economic development a high rate of inward migration can provide an impetus for growth and increased productivity in the medium and long term but may be an issue in the short term as the population grows at a faster rate than output.
The South West also continues to show less deprivation than most of the other English regions and still reflects a high life expectancy. It is also likely that the 'healthy elderly' - older people with good health, disposable income and spare time - contribute greatly to social, cultural and environmental activities in the region.
It is therefore important to manage the growth of the region and develop policies based on sound, up to date evidence. Whilst this report endeavours to cover as broad a range of data and analysis as possible there will inevitably be areas that are less detailed and some of the information will be superceded. An innovation for this report is the web version, which will be regularly updated and enables the content to be easily integrated into reports and presentations.
This is the second production of a 'full' report following on from the published 'What's Changed 2006', and as such, is building on the growing capacity of the Observatory and its partners to access and analyse the relevant data for policy development in the South West. Please let us know the information you find useful or any additional comments you may have.
Nick Chase
Research and Intelligence Manager
SWO Core Unit