A small working group comprising the Community Development Foundation (CDF), Audit Commission, and the Home Office was set up to work on indicators of community involvement.

Four community involvement indicators were chosen for inclusion in the Audit Commission’s Quality of Life set (www.audit-commssion.gov.uk). They are regarded as indicators for four major factors, respectively;

QoL 23: Percentage of adults who feel they can influence decisions affecting their local area

QoL 24: Extent and influence of the voluntary and community sector in the locality

QoL 25: Percentage of people who feel that that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together

QoL 26: Percentage of people who have helped or been helped by others (unpaid and not relatives) (i) over the past year and (ii) once a month or more over the past year.

The testing process looked at three issues;

• Data collection - How easy/difficult is it to collect the measurement data? What are the data collection challenges? Are there different issues in urban and rural areas?
• Usefulness of the indicators - How are the indicators being used by bodies? How useful do bodies find the indicators for planning purposes?
• Development or refinement of the indicators - Do the indicators need to change in any way? If so, how?

The co-ordination of the testing process is being conducted by Jayne Humm, CDF’s Research Manager. Up to 20 local public bodies will be engaged with the testing process. The testing bodies are being asked to collect measurement data for the indicators (phase 1), start to use the indicators data (phase 2) and assess usefulness of the indicators (phase 3). Guidance for testing the indicators is available here (Word, 207Kb).

The first phase of the testing process completed in June 2004. Progress reports from July 2004 (Word, 322Kb) and December 2004 (Word, 78Kb) are available.

The project is due to be completed in March 2005, and a report on how the indicators were used, how useful they were will be published, along with revised guidance for bodies wising to use the indicators. For further information on this work, please contact Jayne Humm, Research Manager at the Community Development Foundation, email jayne@cdf.org.uk.