We are excited to have launched the latest addition to our family of data tools – ProfilingPlaces.Wales.
Place based evidence is essential, both to plan and deliver services and to understand how places are changing over time. This is being brought into stronger focus in recent work to better understand well-being at a community level.
Painting a picture of a place and being able to distinguish its characteristics from those of other places brings its challenges. Firstly, how best to define our places in a consistent way, while providing information on a geographical basis which service providers (and citizens) will recognise as towns, communities, etc. Secondly, the challenge of limited robust quantitative data being available at a sub-local authority level.
We have spent the last 18 months or so looking at what might be possible, including developing a successful pilot tool as a ‘proof of concept’ early in 2018.
In terms of defining a ‘place’, we have used the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Built-up Areas (BUA) geography and settled on BUAs with a Census 2011 population of 2,000 or more. For the beta version we have included an initial set of data about a place. Where possible we have aimed for consistency with the data we know you and colleagues are using at other levels of geography. For our larger towns and cities, we have added the ability to see some of the data for sub areas (LSOAs). Users can also choose to see data about a comparator place.
We have an exciting route map planned for the tool, with a long-term focus on its potential to support understanding of the data coming out the 2021 Census. In the short term, we’d very much welcome your input and advice as we seek to add further data and extend its functionality.
If you’ve some thoughts or ideas, or would like to chat about the tool, please get in touch Andrew.Stephens@Data.Cymru