Celebrating a year of Local Insight!

We are delighted to be celebrating one year of our partnership with Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI), which has enabled us to make Local Insight publicly available across Wiltshire and Swindon.

This partnership reflects our role in connecting people, organisations and resources to strengthen communities, while helping charities, community groups and funders better understand the needs and priorities of local people.

Local Insight is an online data platform that brings together more than 2,000 regularly updated indicators covering topics including health, employment, education, population, inequality and the economy. Through interactive maps, dashboards and customisable reports, users can explore vast amounts of local data to better understand need, support funding applications, shape the services that they are delivering and help tell the story of their communities.

Thanks to the partnership, the platform is publicly accessible for charities, community groups, voluntary organisations, funders and anyone else interested in understanding more about where they live and work across Wiltshire and Swindon.

Since launching last year, the platform has already received more than 2,700 visits, with The Index of Multiple Deprivation being the most frequently accessed dataset, highlighting the importance of easily accessible and reliable local information in helping organisations understand and demonstrate the challenges facing their communities.

Over the past year, Local Insight has supported a wide range of voluntary and community organisations across Wiltshire and Swindon.

Among those is Age UK Wiltshire, who provide services and support to older people across the county. The organisation have been using Local Insight to inform the development of their services and demonstrate need when apply for funding. When reflecting on the impact that Local Insight has had on Age UK Wiltshire, Kate Brooks, the organisation’s Operations Manager, said: “Local Insight enables us to demonstrate need and inform our future development as an organisation. If we're applying for funding or looking to develop something new, we can use the data to show and demonstrate to both ourselves and potential funders the areas where the need is greatest.

"For example, we're going to be running one of our Daytime Discos in Trowbridge, and were considering which venue to hold it in. Using Local Insight, I’m able to compare data on factors such as age, pensioner poverty and long-term health conditions across the surrounding areas, which helps us to identify which venue is best placed to reach the people who are most likely to benefit.”

The platform has also been used by Trowbridge Future, who support vulnerable residents and young people through youth work, community development activities and drop-in services. Speaking about the value of Local Insight, their Chief Executive Meg Aubrey said: “When we approach our fundraising and our programme delivery, we’re always mindful of understanding the current landscape for local people and where there’s particular areas of need or deprivation. On a very linear level, there’s certain funders who will only fund you if your work is within certain areas of deprivation, using those indices, so that’s something that we keep an eye on. It’s really important to be able to have a platform to access this data which is easy and digestible, and all in one place.

“It’s been incredible useful to have robust datasets that reinforce what we’re doing and give us a clear picture of what the need is at a given moment. Local Insight has given us clear evidence that we are delivering what we should be delivering.”

Rachel Hawley, Customer Support Manager at OCSI, said: “It's been a pleasure working with Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation over the years, and seeing how Local Insight helps organisations across Wiltshire and Swindon put data behind the knowledge they already have of their communities. The people using the platform know their areas better than anyone - our role is to make it easier for them to access reliable local data that gives them confidence in the decisions they're making.

“At OCSI, we believe that making local data easier to access helps organisations better understand the communities they serve and gives them stronger evidence to support the work they do. Hearing how organisations like Age UK Wiltshire and Trowbridge Future are using Local Insight in such practical ways is exactly why we built it.

“We're incredibly proud of what we've achieved together with Wiltshire & Swindon Community Foundation and we're looking forward to continuing the partnership and seeing even more organisations benefit from Local Insight in the years ahead.”

Our Partnerships Director, Margaret Firth, added: “I am absolutely delighted to be celebrating one year of Local Insight as a public site.

"Increasing understanding of local needs and priorities is a key part of our work, and we know that access to reliable local data can make a real difference to charities and voluntary groups when they are planning services, applying for funding or responding to the needs of their communities. We are incredibly grateful to the team at OCSI for their support and for helping make this valuable resource available across Wiltshire and Swindon."

You can access the Local Insight platform and find out more about how it can support your organisation by visiting our Local Insight page.

OCSI have written a blog explaining more about how charities can use Local Insight to help inform their work. You can read this blog, by clicking here.