South West Observatory News

New data available through Econ-i

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:18:34 GMT

Have you ever been interested to know how many are employed by hotels in the South West? Or the GVA of the region’s campsites? Or how the value of motor vehicle repair activity compares to vehicle sales?

The new release of the South West Regional Accounts provides more detail on five important sectors - construction, motor distribution, wholesale, retail and hotel & catering. This detail allows you to explore these sectors in more depth tracking GVA, employment and productivity over time and investigate how prevalent these sectors are in the South West compared to elsewhere.

New for this release

· The underlying input-output model (including the ‘What if’ function) is now based on 2007 data.

· Key economic time-series data such as GVA, full-time equivalent workers and number of businesses is estimated for 111 industries and the South West RDA priority sectors up to 2008. This data is available for the region, 15 sub-regions and the rest of Great Britain.

· As described above, there is new industrial detail for the construction, motor distribution, wholesale distribution and retail and hotel sectors. It is now possible to look at the components of these industries at the regional level and time series data on these are available back to 1998.

· Capital expenditure is now available for more industries.

· New information on overseas student spending has been added.

The latest sub-regional indicators is now available

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:37:35 GMT

The latest updated version of the sub-regional indicators is now available. Here is a summary of the headline changes:

GVA:

The latest available data on the sub-regional level is for 2007, which does not reflect the impact of the recession, but do however provide some indication of the performance of the sub-regions going into the recession.
Out of the NUTS2 areas in the South West, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and North Somerset (GWNS) had the highest contribution to the region’s economy (53%) followed by Dorset and Somerset (22%) and Devon (18%).
GVA per head was also highest in GWNS at £21,836 per head, 9% higher than the UK average (£19,951) and almost 20% higher than the South West average (£18,235).
In terms of GVA growth Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly had a positive improvement and the fastest growth amongst the region’s NUTS2 areas between 2006 and 2007 (6.1%) higher than the regional average growth (5.5%).

Labour market:

In the Year up to Q2 2009, the employment rate in the South West was 77.3%, lower than the previous quarter where the same rate was 78.0%.
Of those in employment, the percentage of self-employed has not changed, so the drop was due to the decrease in those who are employees. A similar picture emerges when looking at the national rate.
The highest employment rate was still in South Gloucestershire (82.5%) followed by Wiltshire (80.9) and North Somerset (79.9%).
Also, as expected, unemployment has increased both nationally (6.8%) and on the regional level (5.4%) in Q2 2009 compared to the previous quarter. Over that period Torbay had the highest unemployment rate (8.0%) in the region, followed by Swindon (6.8%) and Cornwall (6.7%).
In terms of industrial composition of employee jobs in the South West, the wholesale and retail industry had the highest share of 17.4% in 2008, followed by the human health and social activity sector (13.0%) and the manufacturing sector (10.2%). This is broadly similar the national picture and both regionally and nationally the composition has not changed from the previous year.
In January 2010 the claimant count rate in the South West was 3.1%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points on the same month of 2009. The corresponding UK rate was 4.3%.
On the sub-regional level, the highest rates were in Torbay (4.9%), Swindon (4.6%), Plymouth and Bournemouth (both at 4.1%).

Housing Market:

In the 3rd quarter of 2009 the average South West House price was £217,251, 4% lower than the UK average price. Excluding the Isles of Scilly, which has exceptionally high average house prices (£437,500), Poole had the highest average price (£272,188) followed by Bath and North East Somerset (£268,277) and Dorset (£245,279).
In terms of annual change between Q3 2008 and Q3 2009, Wiltshire had the largest drop of (-8.4%) followed by Bristol (-7.4%) and then jointly Bournemouth and Devon (-7.3%), all higher than the average South West change of (-0.5%) and the UK’s (-0.2%).

to view both PDF and Excel versions please follow the link bellow.

Sexual Health Balanced Scorecard Launched

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:57:11 GMT

The South West Public Health Observatory (SWPHO) has launched a new web tool to support sexual health strategies in England.

The Sexual Health Balanced Scorecard, www.sexualhealthscorecard.org.uk, was commissioned by the Department of Health and developed by SWPHO with the Health Protection Agency.

The Scorecard provides a suite of nationally agreed indicators at Primary Care Trust level, presented in chart, table and map formats, together with documentation to support interpretation and use. A wide range of indicators is used relating to teenage pregnancy, abortions, contraception, sexually transmitted infections and other relevant issues.

The aim is to provide a key source of sexual health information for public health, commissioning and performance management colleagues at a local, regional and national level.

The South West Public Health Observatory is the lead PHO for sexual health in England.

New Economy Research Page

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:21:20 GMT

Many of the South West RDA corporate research reports are now available on the Economy Module Website. Research on a wide range of hot topics such as the Green Recovery, Globalisation and Productivity can now be accessed directly.

If you have comments on the site please contact the Economy Module Team.

AMR 2009 Out Now

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:15:30 GMT

The SWO Planning Module / South West Councils has recently launched the 2009 Annual Monitoring Report.

The data sets for this will shortly all be accessible via the SWO websites, or by clicking here where you can also access previous years' data.

The latest Economics Review - February 2010 is now available

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:03:07 GMT

We are pleased to announce that the latest Economics Review is now available, here is a summary of the contents:

The South West economy did not suffer as badly as several other regions in the recession but it may also not rebound as quickly with implications for employment.

The region tends to follow rather than to lead and its upturn is likely to be constrained, especially if there are severe government cutbacks in areas particularly important to the South West, our Chief Economist Nigel Jump writes in the South West RDA’s Economics Review.

Nevertheless, he says the immediate South West outlook is for a slow recovery to get underway in 2010.

While regional surveys suggest that output in the South West stabilised and began to rise in the middle of last year, ahead of the UK overall, Nigel says: “Many South West companies still talk of weak demand, spare capacity and cost pressures on margins. As a result, job shedding, albeit at a slower rate than earlier, is more likely than new hiring.”

Elsewhere in the Review, Nigel sounds the alarm over the “astounding” rise in UK indebtedness over the past decade.

And in spite of last month’s return to growth in the broader UK economy, he says to “expect a period in the doldrums that does not feel much like a recovery”.

In this latest review, the special papers include ‘Modelling a low carbon economy’, ‘Innovation & high growth businesses’, ‘Regional short term indicators’ and ‘Recent Developments in the South West labour market’.

The full Review can be downloaded from the link below.

Unitary Authority - Exeter

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:54:20 GMT

Local Government Minister Rosie Winterton today announced the Government's final decisions on unitary proposals for Exeter, Norwich, Ipswich, Norfolk, Devon and Suffolk.

After taking into account local views, Boundary Committee advice and other relevant information the Government is giving the go ahead for Exeter and Norwich to run their cities' local services as unitary councils.

The Government decided that a unitary structure for Exeter and Norwich would make each a far more potent economic force than the current two-tier local government, and will make sure these two key regional cities are ready to seize the opportunities opening up as the recovery begins to promote growth, reduce unemployment, and rebuild local economies.

[Source - Communities & Local Government 10/02/2010]

Labour Market Review - February 2010

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:24:15 GMT

Labour is one of the principle resources fuelling economic production. Effective utilisation of the labour force is crucial for a region’s economic prosperity. Income and fulfilment from employment are key parts of people’s standard of living and employment is important for the overall well-being of our region.

This review considers the condition and the structure of the South West labour market. It analyses key economic, labour market and skills data to assess the long term position of the region as well as recent changes caused by the recession. It aims not only to provide a key source of statistics but to also paint a picture of some of the underlying trends and challenges facing the region’s labour market. The review is structured into four chapters – the economic context, characteristics of labour supply, characteristics of labour demand and skills and qualifications.

This review finds that the South West labour market continues to be characterised by relatively high economic activity rates, high levels of employment and low rates of unemployment. Average wages in the region tend to be lower than the national average and employment is more concentrated in lower value occupations and industries.

Key facts include

· Around 2.5 million, or 81.9% of the working age population, are classed as economically active in the South West, the second highest rate in the country after the South East (82.9%) in the year up to March 2009. The region has consistently performed well on this measure in the last ten years.

· Sub-regionally, economic activity rates vary from 77.2% in the city of Bristol to 87.4% in South Gloucestershire in the year up to March 2009.

· The region has an ageing population. In 2008, 19% of the population was aged over 65 (England 16%) and by 2021 this is predicted to rise to 26% (England 22%).

· Between Q2 2008 and Q3 2009, unemployment in the region increased from 3.8% of the economically active population to 6.6% (768,000 individuals). The SW unemployment rate remains the lowest of all the English regions.

· In the year up to March 2009, on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) measure, unemployment in SWE’s sub-regions ranged from 3.2% in South Gloucestershire to 7.1% in Torbay.

· The number of individuals claiming unemployment related benefits has increased following the onset of the recession, rising from 1.3% in April 2008 to a peak of 3.1% in April 2009 – an additional 56,653 claimants. At the end of 2009, the rate was 2.9%. SWE has, however, seen the smallest percentage rise in claimants amongst the regions and, recently, the negative trend has halted. It remains to be seen if this is a turning point.

To View the whole review please follow the link bellow.