Please Register Here: http://oac.eventbrite.com/

DATE: 6th September 2010

Overview

Cuts in government spending have created huge pressure to make efficiency savings across the public sector. This is driving a need for new and creative ways of maintaining successful delivery of public services while operating under constrained financial and human resources. OAC offers a shared understanding of local areas by linking intelligence and customer insight from across the public sector, and through this integration, enables the delivery of better services at lower cost.

OAC is a free and open geodemographic classification that is supplied by the Office of National Statistics. In this half day seminar a variety of expert speakers will introduce you to a diverse set of tools, software and case study analyses that demonstrate how OAC can be used to understand place based budgeting and make efficiency savings.

Programme

13.30 – 14.00 – Registration
14.00 – 14.10 – Introduction. Alex Singleton: University College London
14.10 – 14.35 – OAC in an age of austerity. John Fisher: Local Futures
14.35 – 15.00 – Using geo-demographic classifications for customer insight. Miranda Webb and Andrew Rudd: Worcestershire County Council
15.00 – 15.25 – Married to MOSAIC or could we have an affair with OAC? Steven Rose: Birmingham City Council
15.25 – 15.50 – The British Population Survey – an introduction to a new perspective. Mike Hare: The BPS
15.50 – 14.15 – Open Data, Free Tools. Alex Singleton and Daniel Lewis: University College London
16.15 – 16.30 – Questions for the Speakers / Discussion

The latest Cambridgeshire Atlas displays indicators of the characteristics of local areas at a small area level. This is achieved through the use of a customer insight tool called Output Area Classification (OAC). OAC is a geodemographic tool offering socio-demographic data for local neighbourhoods. There are three levels to the classification, which includes seven supergroups, 21 groups and 52 subgroups. The Cambridgeshire Atlas displays the seven supergroups
and the 21 groups. Using the groups classification adds greater distinction to the atlas.

This is a good example of simple and clean visualisation, and hence communication, of OAC for an area.

The interaactive map can be accessed here: http://map1.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/observe/Flash/OAC/atlas.html

• Copy, distribute and transmit the Data
• Adapt the Data
• Exploit the Data commercially whether by sub-licensing it, combining it with other data or by including it in your own product or application

This is great news as it includes OAC as one of the variables and makes address lookups a much simpler process. We shall update the tutorial guides on the website soon to reflect this change.

UPDATE: It should be noted that the ONS have a ‘Standard annual supply charge’ which is raised on all orders. This costs £200 annually and covers the four updates during the year.

The British Population Survey interviews between 6 and 8 thousand individuals every month, accounting for an annual total of 80 to 85 thousand people. Each wave of interviews is entirely representative of the British adult population and is conducted by interviewers face-to-face as opposed to over the internet or by mail-shot.

The objective of the British Population Survey is to answer questions as to how many people fit a specific profile, how these profiles compare, what the effect of time is, and so on. Thus the addition of OAC allows the deeper appreciation of the structure of population groups, and of the strength of geodemographic classifications.

Accessing the British Population Survey (and the associated British Marketing Survey) involves going to the BPS website and downloading their data analysis software – DataTalk Explorer. You can download the software for free and it comes with a complete set of 2008 data so you can get a sense of how it can be of use to you. The most up-to-date data (currently May 2010 – total over 200,000 interviews) is available for a one off, no commitment, fee of £125.

In terms of what this means for OAC, we will have the OAC classification available in a commercial product which will hopefully increase awareness of the classification and its status as a National Statistic, but we are also working with the chaps at the British population survey to produce some static index scores, as part of an anticipated Grand Index, for OAC in order to begin to add value to the classification and make it a more useful choice for users.

The article is available here.

“LARI is a CLG funded IEWM regional efficiency and transformation focused initiative. It seeks to develop and demonstrate the value of a local and regional intelligence network in order to share learning, strengthen relationships and ultimately benefit policy and decision making .The project will run for the period September 2009 to March 2011.”

The event website can be found here.

An overview and presentation from the event can be found here:

• OAC Briefing note for workshop
• OAC Workshop presentations (AM Session)
• OAC Workshop presentations (PM Session)

If you have any work that uses OAC that you think will be a useful addition to the case studies currently available please get in touch with the chair or secretary of the group.

The most recent case study is this one regarding the Cambridgeshire Place Report and Interactive map.

ONS Census 2011 Output Consultation

This pdf [here] details the OACUGs response to the census output geography consultation.

The main Output consultation is to follow.