The Local Government Act 2000 granted local authorities the power to promote the social, economic and environmental well-being of their community and charged them with producing a community strategy on how to improve quality of life in their local area. Most have set up Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) to develop this strategy. During 2001/02, the Audit Commission co-ordinated a national pilot exercise with 90 local councils and a few LSPs to develop and test a set of quality of life indicators, designed to monitor the effectiveness of these community strategies.
In September 2002, the Commission published Using Quality of Life Indicators, which reported on the pilot and recommended a good practice set of quality of life indicators, which were endorsed by four government departments and six national organisations. One of the major issues raised by the pilot authorities was the need for guidance on how to communicate quality of life indicators to the public.
Included in this report:
- Why communicate and publish quality of life indicators?
- Know your audience
- Types of publication
- What to include in a publication
- Make it understandable
- Local relevance and mapping
- Make it believable
- Techniques to reduce costs
- Consultation and feedback