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Competitive Scottish Cities? Placing Scotland's cities in the UK and European context

Employment

4.43 Data detailing the number of people employed in each city is available for most of the study cities, although the basis on which it is collected varies by city. Data given here is for total employees (part time and full time added together) rather than full time equivalents. Munich, Frankfurt and Stockholm are the major employment centres closely followed by Birmingham. UK cities dominated the lower end of the table.

Figure 4.7: Total employees 2001

Source: UK Cities ONS/NOMIS Annual Business Inquiry 2001; various city sources

4.44 There is significant variation in the industrial mix of the study cities. Manufacturing still plays a significant role in some cities, accounting for 15% or more of total employment in Dortmund, Munich, Birmingham, Dundee and Sheffield. Table 4.2 shows the proportion of employees working in each sector of the local economy. This data does not show the contribution of each of these sectors to the overall productivity of each city.

Table 4.2: Employment by sector

Source: ONS/NOMIS Annual Business Inquiry 2001; various city sources

4.45 The employment data present here is limited, the data in table 4.2 gives the 'total' number of employees; it would be preferable to use 'Full Time Equivalents' but this was not readily available at city level. 'Total number of employees' does not provide an indication of the number of city residents employed in the city and many of these jobs could be taken by in-commuters. Data relating to the economic activity rates - the proportion of working age residents who are in employment - are explored for UK cities in section 2.11 and at a regional (NUTS 2) level in section 3.21 of the main report.

Human Capital

4.46 The OECD's International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) can be used to convert national qualifications to a standardised scale, making it possible to compare local qualifications on a trans-national basis. ISCED levels 5 and 6 relate to tertiary education and advanced research programmes - degree level or above.

4.47 Where data is available for 1996 and 2001/2 it shows that the proportion of working age residents qualified to degree level has increased in all cities with the exception of Sheffield where the rate has remained static.

4.48 In terms of a highly qualified workforce the Scottish cities appear to be performing particularly well, with 37% of Edinburgh's working age population qualified to degree level or above.

Figure 4.8: Percentage of workforce qualified to degree level or equivalent 2001

Source: UK cities ONS/NOMIS Labour Force Survey Annual Database 2001; various city sources
* Data from Urban Audit 2004. This gives the proportion of population qualified to this level rather than just working age population.

Deprivation

4.49 Unemployment has been used here as an indicator of deprivation and as a measure of unused potential. Systems of defining and measuring unemployment vary by country and nationally compiled data in not automatically comparable on a trans-national basis. However, all EU countries use the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment in their Labour Force Survey:

"Individuals who are out of work but would like a job and are actively seeking and available for employment, or who are out of work and have found a job and are waiting to start In the next two weeks."

4.50 Unfortunately Labour Force Survey results are not available at the local level in all countries and for some cities the regional unemployment rates have been used here.

4.51 In terms of unemployment the UK performs well with some of the lowest unemployment rates across the study cities. The only cities to experience an increase in unemployment between 1996 and 2001 are Frankfurt, Munich, Lyon and Aberdeen.

Table 4.3: ILO unemployment rates 1996-2001

Source: UK cities ONS/NOMIS Labour Force Survey Annual Database 2001; various city sources; Urban Audit 2004
Note: *Regional rates given for French cities

Figure 4.9: ILO unemployment rates 2001

Source: UK cities ONS/NOMIS Labour Force Survey Annual Database 2001; various city sources; Urban Audit 2004
Note: *Regional rates given for French cities

Connectedness

4.52 Airport passenger numbers have been used to provide an indication of a city's connectedness. The data presented here relates to the number of terminal passengers at each airport, these are the passengers who leave the aircraft, and the data includes those passengers who transfer to other flights. Consequently those hub airports such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam where a high proportion of passengers change to onward connections have high passenger number. Data giving the number of passengers leaving the airport and the business/tourist split for each city would provide a more robust indicator of connectedness, however this data in not currently available.

Figure 4.10: Terminal air passengers 2002

Source: Airports Council International 2002

Innovation

4.53 Innovation is a particularly difficult concept to quantify. Whilst the importance of innovation to successful competitive cities is widely recognised there is not a simple measure that can be used summarise a city's performance in this area. The patents measure suggested in our list of headline indicators is a proxy measure that has limitations and it has not been possible to collect this data at the city level. The European Union has developed an Innovation Index to track the 'EU's progress towards becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world'. The index includes a Regional dimension and this has been used here to provide a proxy measure of innovation. At the Regional level the index contains a Revealed Regional Summary Innovation Index (RRSII), which is generated from the following indicators:

• Population with tertiary education
• Participation in lifelong learning
• Employment in medium/high-tech manufacturing
• Employment in high-tech services
• Public R&D expenditure
• Business R&D expenditure
• European Patent Office (EPO) High-tech patent applications
• All EPO applications
• Plus five measures from unpublished Community Innovation Survey 2 data.

4.54 In terms of innovation in their regions Stockholm and Uusimaa are the strongest performers in Europe.

Figure 4.11: European Innovation Scoreboard 2003: Revealed Regional Summary Innovation Index (RRSII)

Source: 2003 European Innovation Scoreboard. Technical paper No. 3. EU Regions Data Sources

4.55 The data sources utilised during this project are detailed below. Some are static, some get updated on a regular basis, and some get updated on different basis so the coverage can vary from year to year, both in terms of the indicators and spatial levels

Table 4.4: UK Datasets

Table 4.5 European Datasets

4.56 All the data sources used come with their own health warnings. Some are more robust than others. Some are based on absolute counts, some on surveys and some on modelling. Survey based data such as the New Earnings Survey and the Labour Force Survey can have relatively small samples in smaller Local Authority areas, this can increase the confidence intervals associated with the data.

4.57 The spatial level at which data is available also varies. Much of the UK data is available at Ward or Local Authority level. Data available across Europe tends to be for larger spatial levels - often NUTS 2 and NUTS 3. The Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS) is a hierarchical classification of administrative areas, used across the European Union for statistical purposes.

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