New Ward Profiles for Birmingham were launched on 23 May. These are being hosted as part of the Birmingham City Observatory. These profiles are an excellent way to begin to build a picture of the place-based communities around your services and organisation.

What are ward profiles?

Ward profiles are the data sets that can be displayed at ward level. Wards are used both to define the boundaries to elect local councillors, but also are one of the “footprints” that are used to show what is happening to citizens in different parts of the city. Projects that are supported by Birmingham City Council often define need around what is taking place within a ward. Even when a larger “footprint” is used e.g., localities, there is often further work done to understand what is happening at “ward level”.

What do ward profiles cover?

The ward profiles contain information which paints a picture about each ward and provides an overview across a range of different topics:

• Demographics: Population, ethnicity, and religion
• Deprivation: Index of multiple deprivation and Income deprivation affecting children, and older people
• Economy: Universal Credit claimants
• Education: Key stage 2 (primary school) and Key stage 4 (secondary school) attainment
• Environment: Accessibility of greenspace
• Health and Wellbeing: Life expectancy, deaths from stroke and prevalence of obesity among children
• Housing: Housing tenure, council owned housing stock and council owned sheltered and non-sheltered accommodation
• Unemployment: Claimant count of the working age population.

How are ward profiles useful to VCFSE organisations?

Ward profiles provide the following for VCFSE organisations:

• An evidenced overview of what is happening to citizens in your area
• Information to support leadership and governance decisions around priority setting for organisations
• Evidence around demographics, the challenges and the level of need that can be used in funding applications
• A way of checking what data does and doesn’t exist at a local level
• A clear picture around how inequalities impact communities
• An understanding of how BCC, the ICS and elected members perceive your area
• Data to underpin the narrative you want to provide around the community in which you work
• The ability to understand if you are reaching a true cross section of the community around your service and organisation
• Information within ward profiles should be used alongside citizen experience and more granular evidence your organisation receives as part of the co-production process.
  
  

What can I do with ward profiles now?

The first thing to do is have a go. Clicking on the link above entering the location of either your service, organisation or the place where you live will give you lots of access to useful information and create the confidence to come back when you need to.

*We know that not all VCFSE organisations work around communities that live in a particular place. If you work with a dispersed community that is gathered around a shared experience, interest or identity similar information can be found in Community Health Profiles.