The big news this week is that we've released our 2022 Annual Report (also available as a PDF thanks to some print stylesheets). Some parts of the report are generated from data we collect for our dashboard.
We've been continuing to improve coverage for our warm spaces finder tool. It now includes 12,253 warm space offers from 121 different directories. You can get the compiled data as a JSON file or a GeoJSON file or see them all on a map. Stuart has also done some preliminary analysis looking at the number of offers by constituency with each consituency ranked by deprivation. You'd hope that offers of warm spaces were targetted at the areas in most need but, unfortunately, this visualisation doesn't show that pattern.
Christian spent Wednesday in Manchester at the Convention of the North 2023 at Manchester Central, where over 1,000 representatives from business, local and national government, civil society and more came together to work together to improve the economic and social conditions of North England. Lots of good discussion, with transport one of the very hottest topics (including a great line from the developers of the new Co-op Live Arena in Manchester: "you can't have a night-time economy if the last train is at 10pm"). Was a great chance to catch-up with lots of people that haven't got together in such a large group since before the plague times.
We've progressed some of our projects. Some highlights:
We met with folks from the UK Parliament to show where we have got up to with Competency Answerability Dashboard that we've been making for them to explore how the Register of Members' Financial Interests could be improved.
Giles, Michelle and Taz held a working session with Youth Futures Foundation to progress the work on their data dashboard. Although the scope and priorities are not yet completely decided, this is shaping up to be a really useful tool for practitioners which brings together disparate sources of data relevant to Youth Futures Foundations's mission.
Giles and Dan had a review of the code which runs the bins apps for Leeds, Rotherham, Luton and Fenland. We'll be making some changes to the process by which these are released to enable these to scale up.
The ONS have been gradually publishing Census 2021 data at fine-grained geographies so we've updated the geographic datasets that we use in the Leeds City Region Diversity Dashboard. The new census data gives us better detail on sexuality (previously we relied on a Yorkshire & The Humber level survey from 2018) and has finally allowed us to add the section on gender identity.
Looking ahead to forthcoming events, we've got the Northern Economic Data user group on February 23rd and shortly after that, the Open Data Saves Lives session on March 1st.
Meanwhile, please get in touch if you're looking for a light, bright and airy space in central Leeds to host your workshop, meeting or event!
