Minutes of UA Think Tank meeting 2/3/2005
Minutes of the
Urban Audit Think Tank 2 meeting
2 March 2005 in Luxembourg
Participants:
Dominika Felczak (Poland)
Dev Virdee (UK)
Matthew Shearing (UK)
Jean-Luc Lipatz (France)
Mathieu Vliegen (Netherlands)
Klaus Trutzel (Gemany)
Michal Olexa (SK)
Lewis Dijkstra, DG REGIO
Mark Bacon, DG ENV
Sven Dammann, EEA
Berthold Feldmann, Eurostat
Torbiörn Carlquist, Eurostat
Teodóra Brandmüller, Eurostat
Berthold Huber, Eurostat
Willy Croi, Landsis (Consultant)
1. Introduction
The Head of Unit Roger Cubitt welcomed the participants of the Think Tank meeting. He highlighted two particular points:
· Eurostat decided in November 2004 that the Urban Audit data collection will from now onwards be a core task of the statistical system. This implies among other things that the project will be co-financed by Eurostat and DG REGIO.
· Structural Funds 2007-2013 may well be decided at the June summit of heads of state in Luxembourg. The Urban Audit will be part of the Objective “Competitiveness and Employment”. Here national governments have the possibility of “pick and mix”, i.e. the financial importance of urban aspects in this Objective is up to the Member States.
The whole meeting took place in a very constructive atmosphere. The agenda was adopted.
The chairman Berthold Feldmann welcomed in particular the new team member of Eurostat, Teodóra Brandmüller and the special guests from DG ENV and the EEA, Mr Bacon and Mr Dammann.
2. Quality control
Willi Croi from Landsis explained the current state of the UA quality project. Systematic univariate and multivariate controls are being performed on the existing data set. The time table is as follows:
Phase 1Control 1 (sum checks, consistency over spatial units / Now ongoing
Control 2 (outliers, i.e. beyond standard deviation of indicators / Starts 21 March,
ends 29 April
Phase 2
Control 1 / Beginning of June
Control 2 / Beginning of July
In phase 1, the data sent back by NUACs for control 1 is being evaluated. The indicators will be recalculated based on the new values received and in control 2 the NUACs will be contacted again about the resulting figures.
Many problems were noted with the national level data, collected by a contractor for Eurostat. Next time, the NUACs will have to supply the national data themselves. This will assure data consistency.
3. The perception survey
The perception survey for new Member States, foreseen for 2005, had to be cancelled as no appropriate call for tender has been made by DG PRESS. This is extremely regrettable as the perception survey data is most liked by journalists and the public at large, much more than the “hard” data.
The chairman presented the results of the questionnaire Eurostat sent to the 27 countries participating in the UA. The feedback from countries indicated an increase in quality rather than a price reduction (costs per city were 10.000 € for the 2004 perception survey). 17 out of 27 countries would like to participate in 2006. Mostly telephone surveys are envisaged, for all UA cities but mostly for core cities only.
DG REGIO hopes to get a budget for 50 to 60 cities for the EU-25. Countries can of course include additional cities on their own cost. A common methodology should be respected for all the surveys within and between the countries.
4. Data analysis by DG REGIO
Willi Croi from Landsis had to leave the room for this topic, as the DG REGIO call for tender was presented.
DG REGIO will update the UA website with data from the new Member States and publish a book for the 69 remaining cities not covered last year, before August of this year.
The call for tender on data analysis, to be published soon, will comprise an exhaustive analysis of trends and typologies, an analysis per country, 5-10 examples how cities can use the Urban Audit, and an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the UA.
Eurostat suggested including best practice examples of the usage of the UA data.
5. Current usage of UA data in Member States
The ONS (UK) presented their very interesting website which includes interactive maps for the core city, LUZ and SCD. All cities can be made visible and comparative data pops up on the screen.
The other countries:
PL – will perhaps include some UA data on a website in the future;
NL – analytical articles concerning UA were published a year ago; the data is on the national web site;
SK – all four UA cities have a website with a reduced data set;
FR – plans for a publication on UA have been abandoned;
DE – there is a web-site of the main indicators and another one of all UA data, which is intended for statisticians and researchers; academics are – on a small scale so far - involved in the analysis.
6. Improvement of dissemination
In terms of dissemination more attention for the Urban Audit results is desirable. A new Press Release is planned by DG REGIO for the end of the year. Eurostat's dissemination tool can not be directly influenced by the UA team and therefore has to be accepted as it is. User registration allows a higher user-friendliness of NewCronos.
One possibility to make the Urban Audit more known in the academic world is to use the SCORUS conference this year in Amsterdam and next year in Wroclaw.
7. Fine-tuning of the indicator list
The indicator list for the 2006 collection, first discussed at the Think Tank meeting six months ago, was re-checked item by item, in order to see if any revisions are needed. The new list will be sent out a.s.a.p.
During the discussion of environmental indicators the possibility of better coverage and choice was examined. As a conclusion, DG ENV and EEA will have an internal debate and come up with a solid proposal for the next Thing Tank meeting in June.
8. Add more cities in 2006?
DG REGIO highlighted the options of adding more cities in 2006. If all cities above 100 000 inhabitants would be included, this would mean an increase of an additional 279 cities to the current 258 cities.
In the discussion it became clear that this would be too expensive and the balance of representativity between countries would be lost. As a conclusion the group was rather inclined to stay with the current 258 cities (with minor adaptations), and to have an additional annual collection of around 35 core variables for all 500 to 600 cities (UA cities plus all large cities). For this, the possibility of funding will be examined by the Commission.
Norway and also Switzerland have signalled their interest in participating in the Urban Audit.
9. Correcting LUZ definitions
Torbiörn Carlquist gave an overview of the current situation and suggested a review of the current LUZ definitions before the next data collection round. Some issues are still open which mainly need to be addressed bilaterally.
Summing up the day
The chairman thanked the participants for the fruitful and co-operative work during the meeting. The next meeting will be Wednesday 8 June 2005. Possible topics:
· Improvement of meta data
· Major gaps per country (and how to fill them)
· Comparison with the UN list of Urban Indicators
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