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Introduction

Coalfields Regeneration Trust (CRT) is a community wealth building charity supporting people in Britain’s former coalfield areas.

They create jobs and drive economic growth by building units for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and reinvest taxable profits to generate social value through partnerships that help communities reach their potential.

Reliable data is essential for CRT to identify areas of economic deprivation, assess funding eligibility, and ensure resources are directed where they are needed most.

To support this work, CRT has a Local Insight + Public Site subscription, which enables CRT, their stakeholders and partners to easily access key community data.

Challenges

CRT were previously subscribed to Local Insight’s predecessor, Community Insight – but before that, they found it difficult to access and manage the data to support their work.

They relied on multiple data sources, such as the ONS website and other government portals, and data gathering was fragmented and time-consuming.

In addition, CRT were manually distributing information to stakeholders and community partners, who lacked the time or technical knowhow to find and interpret relevant local data themselves.

Solutions

Local Insight is designed to simplify data access and analysis – bringing together over 1,500 data indicators from dozens of sources – including key indicators like Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) data, as well as regularly updated Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics.

All indicators within the system have detailed metadata making it easy for CRT to identify the best indicators to understand where the areas of economic deprivation are, and assess their funding eligibility.

Combined with the Public Site add-on, which allows stakeholders and community partners to access relevant data directly without a log-in or subscription themselves, their Local Insight subscription saves CRT valuable time and encourages self-service.

Results

Local Insight has become a core tool for CRT, improving how they measure impact, assess community needs, and share data. Recently, it played a key role in a new project focused on measuring social value.

As part of their new organisational strategy, which outlines five key missions and ten ambitions, CRT used Local Insight to break down each objective with data-driven insights. The platform provided the data that helped clarify why each ambition was set, how progress could be measured, and offered an evidence base that could support the planning process.

The Public Site add-on has meant that partners can access local data quickly, independently and in an easily understood format. For example, a team member needed a report on children’s health for a project, and Local Insight was used to generate a report that included the data needed at the click of a button, then shared instantly with partners.

We never really had the broad range of things in one accessible area before – Local Insight brings it all together. It’s easy to use, saves us time, and the Public Site means stakeholders can access the data they need directly, without us having to send it manually.

Allison Carr
Development Manager – Coalfields Regeneration Trust

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