Here you’ll find all of our InfoBase news including updates on the system and its content.

Job Seeker’s Allowance claimant count (December 2019)

The latest (December 2019) Job Seeker’s Allowance claimant count is now available following a release by the Office for National Statistics.

Employment status (January 2020 release)

The latest (October 2018 – September 2019) employment status estimates are now available following a recent update of the Annual Population Survey.

The next update will be available in April 2020.

Average house prices (November 2019)

The data for November 2019 for average house prices is now available following a release by the Land Registry.

The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) rankings and the indicator data is now available in InfoBaseCymru.

There are 1,909 LSOAs in Wales, across the 22 local authorities. They are ranked from most deprived to least deprived against the eight domains of deprivation (Income, Employment, Health, Education, Access to Services, Community Safety, Physical Environment and Housing) and also for overall deprivation.

Each domain is made up of a number of indicators and the indicator data is also available along with the LSOA rankings.

The data and rankings are a valuable source of information for local authorities, public bodies, policy makers and the general public to understand how deprivation exists across Wales.

To access the data please visit InfoBaseCymru.

Overall, the latest free swimming data shows a 7% increase in the number of free public swims for both younger and older people compared to the same period last year.

Want to see more? Check out our Free Swimming interactive tool for Wales.

For more information on Free Swimming data please contact Adrian Smith.

Overall, the latest free swimming data shows a 14% increase in the number of free public swims for both younger and older people compared to the same period last year.

Want to see more? Check out our Free Swimming interactive tool for Wales.

For more information on Free Swimming data please contact Adrian Smith.

We’ve launched the latest release to our tool Profiling Places Wales.

The tool aims to support Welsh local authorities, Public Services Boards and their partners to plan and deliver services, to understand how places are changing over time and to better understand well-being at a community level. The tool contains data on 192 Built-up Area (BUA) geographies with a Census 2011 population of 2,000 or more.

Following the successful launch of our beta tool earlier this year, we’ve continued to receive valuable feedback which has helped us update and develop the tool further, including:

• The addition of health and well-being services data;
• The addition of more LSOA level maps to provide a breakdown for larger areas;
• The ability to export or print charts for reporting purposes; as well as
• More functional updates.

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 meantime, we’ll be looking for input from users as we seek to add further data and extend its functionality.

If you have any thoughts or ideas or would like to have a chat about the tool, please contact Tom.Brame@data.cymru.

Overall, the latest free swimming data shows a 10% increase in the number of free public swims for both younger and older people compared to the same period last year.

Want to see more? Check out our Free Swimming interactive tool for Wales.

For more information on Free Swimming data please contact Adrian Smith.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the 2018 mid-year estimates of population on 26 June 2019.

The estimates are available at single year of age and at local authority level. We have included them in InfoBaseCymru as broad age bands for easier use. If you need data for different age bands please contact us.

For more information on population data please contact Rhys Fidler.

Overall, the latest free swimming data shows a 12% increase in the number of free public swims for both younger and older people compared to the same period last year.

Want to see more? Check out our Free Swimming interactive tool for Wales.

For more information on Free Swimming data please contact Adrian Smith.

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