With 10 of us attending via Teams, it was good to catch up! Louise Reeve (LARIA North East Organiser) led with a presentation on ‘The Census: What’s New, and What’s In It for You?’, describing how ONS plan to increase digital participation in Census to 75% in 2021, and get the data outputs to users in a way that works best for them. We discussed both plans for the Census, and issues that members were facing and expect to face in future, such as:

• For some attendees, the challenge of successfully carrying out their regular role whilst at the same time completing a Data Analyist Apprenticeship – and whether local authorities have fully embraced data science and what it can offer us.
• The extent to which local authorities are able to do ‘in-depth’ or ‘proactive’ research, rather than reactive research.
• How we will manage workloads in 2021 when tasks that were put on hold during the pandemic have to be caught up with.
• The difficulties of keeping up with what’s happening when no-one’s in the office – and how we’re looking forward to hopefully getting back into it in 2021.
• The logistical difficulties of the upcoming vaccination programme.
• The opportunities offered by Census 2021, particularly for those of us managing data platforms such as Durham Insight.

Despite the challenges, all agreed it was good to catch up. We’ll have another event soon!

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LARIA North East Autumn 2019 Networking Event

Organised by LARIA (Local Area Research and Information Association) and free to attend, this is your chance to get together with other local area researchers in the North East and learn about new research techniques.
A more informal session than previously, we will have a presentation on plans for the Census 2021 by Louise Reeve (Assistant Census Liaison Manager for Newcastle City Council), and the rest of the time will be set aside for networking and general discussion.
If you have any queries, contact Louise Reeve, LARIA North East Co-ordinator, and I’ll be happy to answer them: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk.

Book your place here: LARIA North East Networking 1 December 2020

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We first heard from Dr Mandy Cheetham and Samantha Redgate on the topic ‘A new way forward for local authority research; the LACOR project’. They discussed how Newcastle City Council and the FUSE centre had worked together to develop an embedded culture of research in a local authority. For more information please contact Dr Cheetham here: M.Cheetham@tees.ac.uk

Next, Gary Murphy from Newcastle City Council discussed how the Python software and machine learning can help to map the private rented sector in a local authority area. For more information about this please contact Gary here: gary.murphy@newcastle.gov.uk LARIA North East members had mentioned at earlier networking events that they wanted more time to get to know each other, so we had a tea and coffee breaks after each presentation for people to discuss their projects and explore opportunities to work together.

Louise Reeve from Newcastle City Council and Simon Taylor from QSR International talked about how qualitative analysis software, such as Interpris, can be used to speed up analysis of consultation and survey responses. For more information, contact Louise Reeve at: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk   Finally, Louise Reeve, the LARIA North East Regional Organiser, presented on ‘What’s happening with LARIA nationally?’, including the online forum, the recent LARIA Awayday strategic planning meeting, and the upcoming LARIA One Day Conference in November 2019.

Feedback on the event was generally positive and included comments such as:

‘It is really interesting to see how others do things, and ideas I can take back into my workplace for the analysis I carry out, in particular Interpris [qualitative analysis software] and the survey analysis techniques.’

‘It felt informal enough to be able to have good honest discussions.’

Topics suggested for future events were:

‘Health and Wellbeing’

‘Talk through R’

‘Data visualisation, and career progression within the research and analysis field.’

‘Possibly something around data sourcing? We spend a lot of time trying to source data and it may be interesting to find out how others do it to help us to use our time more efficiently and effectively.’

Thanks to everyone who attended for making it such an amazing event. The next one will be in Spring 2020. Watch this space! Louise Reeve Email: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk

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LARIA NE event attendees in 2018

The first LARIA North East networking event of 2019 will take place on Thursday 21st March, 1-4pm at North Yorkshire County Council in Northallerton. There’ll be plenty of chances to network, and we have speakers discussing: Intelligent Council project, Durham Insight, how local authorities and universities can work together more effectively. Free to attend – reserve your place here!

If you have questions, contact me at: louise.reeve@newcastle.gov.uk I look forward to seeing you!

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