LoRaWAN enables smarter working locally across Wales

Blog by Peter, Digital Infrastructure, Welsh Government

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg 

It’s been over a year since my last blog which covered how LoRaWAN is helping to fight crime and tackle climate change.

Since then, we have seen the Smart Towns programme flourish, with the team undertaking a significant amount of engagement, and hosting what is understood to be the first “Smart” conference focusing on towns, hosted in Wrexham (which ironically is a city!).

Continue reading

Chief statistician’s update: updating the names for Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) in Wales

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

What are Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs)?

LSOAs are geographical areas of similar population size used for reporting small area statistics. There are 1,917 LSOAs in Wales. Each LSOA contains between 400 and 1,200 households with a resident population between 1,000 and 3,000 people.

Continue reading

Developing Data Science Skills

Post by Steven, Data Science Unit, Welsh Government

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Data science is a key skill to transforming our work in Welsh Government, as we use it to modernise and automate data processes and help us to work efficiently, transparently and accurately. The data science unit has always been keen to help staff learn and improve their data science skills, and we have recently started two new initiatives to support this goal.

Continue reading

Important update for StatsWales OData users

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg.

We are working on a new and improved platform for StatsWales to keep up with technological updates and user needs. As a consequence, our OData services will not be available from the end of August. This is because Microsoft will stop supporting the technology and our new solution will not be ready until 2025.  
 
This post explains what will happen, how it will affect you and what temporary arrangements we are putting in place.

Continue reading

Chief statistician’s update: understanding road collision and casualty statistics

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

On 6 June 2024 we will be publishing provisional data on police recorded road collisions and casualties for October to December 2023. Since the introduction of the 20mph default speed limit on restricted roads in September 2023 there has been considerable interest in collisions data.

Continue reading

Cyber Action Plan for Wales – One year on

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

It’s a year since we published the Cyber Action Plan for Wales which sets out our vision that Wales prospers through cyber resilience, talent and innovation.

The Plan has four priority areas to help us deliver our vision:

  • growing our cyber ecosystem;
  • building a pipeline of cyber talent;
  • strengthening our cyber resilience; and,  
  • protecting our public services.

You can find out more about why we’re focusing on these priorities on our previous blogs.

Continue reading

Using Code to Automatically Style Charts for Publications

Post by Joe & Aron, Data Science Unit, Welsh Government

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Welsh Government staff in the Knowledge and Analytical Services (KAS) spend many hours formatting their charts for publication, making sure font sizes are correct, colours follow the guidance and axes are labelled. The Data Science Unit has streamlined these processes by creating a code package written in R, known as “KASStylesR”. With KASStylesR, teams can produce publication-ready Welsh and English charts in a fraction of the time it would have taken before.

Continue reading

Guest blog: Exploring the Potential of Digital Twins in the Welsh Government

Post by Christopher, Ordnance Survey consultant working in the Welsh Government

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Digital twins could deliver £7bn in benefits to the UK economy by 2050, according to a recent Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) report.  The report also found that digital twins could reduce costs by up to 25%, improve productivity by up to 15%, and reduce emissions by up to 20%.

With this in mind, the Ordnance Survey is working with the Welsh Government over the next few months to explore if and how digital twins could support the Digital Strategy for Wales in underpinning policy areas and identify where they could add the most value.

Continue reading

Celebrating the achievements of the Welsh Language Technology Action Plan (2018 – 2024)

By Indeg, Cymraeg 2050 Team

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

When we published the Welsh Language Technology Action Plan in 2018, our aim was to create technological advances that would enable us to use more Welsh in a wide range of situations. The Minister for Education and Welsh Language has now published the final report on this Plan, which looks back at the progress we’ve made.

Continue reading

Chief Statistician’s update: improvements introduced to labour market estimates for Wales

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Cymraeg.

In September 2023, we published a Chief Statistician’s blog providing advice about the challenges being faced in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the impact of such challenges on labour market statistics for Wales and what ONS plans were to address the challenges.

Continue reading