
Developing the Community Needs Index

- Company: OCSI (Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion)
- Client: Local Trust
- Year: 2018
- Region: England
- Product: Local Insight, OCSI Research Services
- Community engagement
Introduction
The research led to the formation of the APPG for left behind neighbourhoods, and has been used to allocate resources for the Know your Neighbourhood Fund.
The Community Needs Index is exclusively available to explore for England within Local Insight.
Challenges
This is the first time a comprehensive, quantitative measure of this kind has been produced – and as such, it took work to find the right datasets to include, and ensure that they were appropriately weighted within the domains that make up the overall index.
Solutions
Civic Assets: Measures the presence of key community, civic, educational, and cultural assets (such as pubs, libraries, green spaces, and community centres) in close proximity to an area.
Connectedness: Assesses connectivity to essential services, digital infrastructure, isolation, and the strength of the local job market.
Active and Engaged Community: Examines levels of third-sector civic and community activity and barriers to participation and engagement.
Each of these three domains has its own associated score. In addition, the three domain scores are standardised and combined to produce the overall Index score (Community Needs score). A higher score indicates that an area has higher levels of community need.
Results
This work contributed to the formation of an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) – a cross-party group of MPs and Members of the House of Lords which was seen as “the first in-depth inquiry into how the government’s levelling up policies are working on the ground.”
The CNI was also used to allocate funding for the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund. A package designed to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.
Beyond that, Sport England have used the Community Needs Index within their Place Partnerships work to support low income communities that don’t have the access to the same facilities or opportunities as other more affluent areas.
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