The latest (still ‘experimental’ due to falling numbers of responses to the Labour Force Survey) jobs stats have the North East unemployment rate at 4.1%, just below the UK rate of 4.2%.
There’s an expectation that the new, hopefully more robust, method will arrive for next month’s figures.
It’s an important thing to get right, as public trust in official statistics and how they are reported and used is crucial - especially going into some very significant local elections in May, and then a General Election somewhere in the middle-distance.
Look forward to next month where we’ll hopefully get to see what they’ve come up with. The previous methodology had lots of flaws, but it did have a basis in what actual people were telling the ONS, rather than being extrapolated from other datasets (which is what they’ve been doing for the past five months). Fingers crossed the new approach gives plenty of good quality regional data too.
Hate crime down in Northumbria and Durham, up in Cleveland
The House of Commons Library had a briefing paper out this week on hate crime statistics.
It shows the figures for the 43 police forces in England and Wales, as well as Scotland and Northern Ireland.
There were 3,612 hate crimes in the Northumbria Police operating area in 2022/23, down 2% on 2021/22, 856 in Durham’s area (down 7%) and 1,562 in the Cleveland Police area, up 5% on 2021/22.
Across the country the average was a fall of 5% in the number of recorded hate crimes in the past year, but the figures are still up an incredible 252% on 2012/13.
In the past year, hate crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation and disability are all down (although up between 189% and 691% on ten years ago), but transgender hate crime is up 11% on last year (and 1,426% on 2012/13!).
Cleveland ranks 8th and Northumbria 10th in the list of all hate crimes per 100,000 population. Northumbria also appears 7th on the transgender list, and 8th on the religion one.
Council debt
BBC analysis has placed South Tyneside at No. 9 on the list of debt per resident, with £4,283 per person in the local authority.
In 2021/22, the council’s total debt was 478.1% its core spending power - the English average is something like 230%. Debt servicing accounted for 18.7% of core spending power - again the average is about half that.
For comparison…Middlesbrough, which is pursuing emergency support to avoid bankruptcy, had debts of 172% of core spending in 2021/22, and debt servicing of 8.5%. Although, their social care spend alone accounted for 89% of core spending power.
As the BBC article explains, the big debts aren’t so much about core services - although many of those are stretching budgets and resulting in spending down reserves - but are more to do with big commercial investments in an effort to generate income and balance the books long term.
There have been five councils in England which have issued ‘Section 114’ notices, declaring themselves effectively bankrupt, and Boro have said they may need to do so. Just two of the top ten on the BBC’s list have issued those notices though (Thurrock and Woking), so there’s not a direct correlation there. Being high on the list does not mean bankruptcy is inevitable…but it does mean lots of risk, and finances being exposed.
The New Statesman has a cheerful tracker showing where there are authorities at risk.
Socially-selective schools?
The Sutton Trust, which investigates social mobility in Britain, published a new paper on comprehensive schools last week.
The paper finds that the top 500 comprehensive schools in England have a significant gap between the rate of Free School Meals (FSM) at that school an the eligibility of the local area they draw their students from.
The Trust argue this shows an element of social selection, with pupils on FSM disadvantaged and less likely to get into top schools, even if there is one in their area.
The analysis shows that the North East has 4.9% of all comprehensive schools, and an FSM rate of 28.8%. On the Progress 8 measure (which looks at ‘value-added’ for pupils averaged across eight core subjects), the North East has 1.2% of top 500 schools, with an FSM rate of 18.8% - ten percentage points lower than the region’s baseline. On Attainment 8 (which is an average of top scores across the core subjects), the region has 4.0% of the top 500 schools, with an FSM rate of 15.6%.
So, those schools in the North East which do best for improving pupil outcomes, and for high outcomes overall, have a significantly lower proportion of pupils receiving free school meals than the regional average.
The briefing makes the comparison with London, where A-Level results have been improving, compared ot the North East, where they have been falling.
“The picture is complex and varies from region to region, but comparing just the North East and London as an example, we see increasing levels of FSM eligibility generally, fewer top 500 schools and increasing levels of social selectivity in the top schools that there are in the North East.”
It goes on to say “these are two quite different regional stories – one of broad improvement in London, but one of decline in attainment and increasing social selectivity in the North East.”
They make a range of recommendations, including schools implementing a fair access review, tweaks to admissions processes (especially those like faith schools which have additional criteria), and reducing the cost of attending school. It also calls for government to review and police these sorts of issues too.
What I’ve been reading this week
My old parish, the North East Chamber of Commerce has published a report on inclusive employment. It has a set of contributions and case studies from some of the biggest and most influential businesses in the region on issues like gender, LGBTQ+ representation, disability, ethnicity, neurodiversity, older workers and ex-offenders. Some good stuff in there, including from a couple of my clients, you read the whole thing here
Everyone’s favourite priest and imaginary boyfriend Andrew Scott, who in a Hollywood Reporter roundtable called for the retirement of the phrase ‘openly gay’. “We don’t say you’re ‘openly Irish.’ We don’t say you’re ‘openly left-handed’…There’s something in it that’s a little near ‘shamelessly.’ ‘You’re open about it?’ You know what I’m saying?”
What’s coming up in the next week or so?
Reaction to the surprise rise in inflation from this morning (up 0.1% to 4.0%)
House Price Index figures a little bit later on
PMQs later on too - with the PM dealing with resignations if senior figures after the Rwanda vote last night
December’s retail sales data is out on Friday
Friday is a Private Members’ Bill day, and Sunderland’s Julie Elliott and Emma Lewell-Buck from South Shields are both on the list to have their bills debated
On Monday there’s some analysis out from the ONS on average hours worked and economic growth…I’d expect it to remind us that we have a productivity problem in this country
Centre for Cities are also launching their Cities Outlook 2004 on Monday, there’s a virtual launch over Zoom you can sign up for here
Working with me
I can support you with all sorts of projects, mostly around working with data or evidence and using it to tell stories or have impact in the policy world.
Get in touch if you’d like to commission me for something like that, or are in need of someone who can produce you some excellent written content.
I’m open to projects or retained work, and I’m also very useful if you’ve got a gap in your team you’re looking to plug with a few days of external resource for a few weeks or months.
You can find out more about me on my website.
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