At the Regional Australia Institute, we gather and analyse the best information we can find on regions and use it to help regional leaders across the country identify their opportunities and challenges.
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It’s fundamentally important that the tools we use to help regional communities make decisions about their future are robust, accurate and up to date. Our reputation depends on that.
So when a regional community looks to set its path for the future, it’s a bit like getting ready to play a game of footy.
When you take to the playing field, you have to play to your strengths and you need to know where you need to lift your game. You need to know where your weaknesses are and how you match up against others.
To help answer these questions, the RAI has developed [In]sight. It’s an online competitive index data tool that compares and ranks economic performance of each local government area (LGA) and also regional development area (RDA).
Put simply, if you log onto [In]sight from our website, you can quickly find out how your area is performing and how it ranks against other regions across the country.
Regions are ranked across 10 themes, made up of 65 indicators. These themes are globally recognised as measures of economic development.
The themes include: demography, institutional foundations, infrastructure and essential services, natural resources, economic fundamentals, business sophistication, human capital, technological readiness, and labour market efficiency. Regions are given rankings out of 560 for each themed area, with number one being the best. While we are focused on regional LGAs, this data tool also takes in metropolitan areas.
If you are in Moree Plains Shire for example, you are able to go on and see where you sit in terms of your aging population. Moree’s population over the age of 65 has grown slightly in the last five years and now has 23.5 per cent in that bracket.
It has had a slight increase in the number of people living in the LGA with science, technology, economic and maths (STEM) skills. And it has also seen an increase in the number of people living there who are business advisors. These are the people your community needs to drive business development and ultimately create jobs. Over the last few years, many regional community leaders, regional experts, government agencies, journalists and academics have been using [In]sight to gauge how different LGAs are performing.
Knowing how your LGA or RDA region ranks and how it competes are key to evidence-based strategy and informing and influencing decision making.
In August, we are set to release the latest version of [In]sight and our team has been working for many months to input the latest data from Census and other sources, to help tell the story of how regions are travelling.
When the new version is released, you’ll see that Hobart and Armidale have ranked highly in the category that looks at access to tertiary education, coming in at 7th and 9th respectively.
When it comes to the indicator of business turnover value, Lake Grace, Kent and Dalwallinu have made the top 10.
The biggest turnover of population for regional LGAs has occurred in Ashburton and Palmerston. While Roxby Downs and Doomadgee have come out on top with the lowest senior dependency ratio – that is the LGAs with the lowest proportion of citizens over the age of 65.
Kulin in Western Australia has more business owners per population than any other LGA. In this LGA, 40 in every 100 workers are running their own business.
At the RAI, our credibility as Australia’s first independent think-tank is reliant on the information we gather and [In]Sight is one of the tools we use. It’s a tool we are very proud of and we invite you to get to know our tool and use it to help your region move forward.
You need to know where your weaknesses are and how you match up against others.
A lot of what the RAI knows about regional Australia is in the data of [In]Sight and our team uses it extensively in the research we produce.
For those who are already signed up to [In]sight, you’ll will notice we have many more features for you to access when the new version comes online. We know that when you use [In]sight, you’ll get the answers you need to see how your region is tracking and that gives your team the ability to take the field in a smart way.
For more information about [In]sight, go to www.regionalaustralia.org.au
