Introduction
Although Statistics New Zealand (Stats NZ) and other statistical agencies - NZ Health Information Service (NZHIS), Education Counts, Ministry of Social Development (MSD) - together with other sources) provide information for community profiling from their continuously updated and voluminous data sets, much analytical work is still required to select appropriate data to access it, process, analyse and interpret it and to convert this into understanding of communities, their component groupings: and more importantly still, their attitudes and their futures. But New Zealand’s statistical agencies are far better at providing relevant information at the national or broader regional levels than at the smaller scales in which most New Zealanders live their lives. Moreover, constructing meaningful and useful community profiles requires capacities in processing statistics, application of broader knowledge frames, abilities in developing programs that might make a difference and depths of local understanding. While this community profiling service is primarily concerned to assist voluntary groups, communities, local authorities and even those operating at regional levels in using statistical data for their purposes, it is also a two-way street as the knowledge built up will also feedback to affect shared knowledges about communities in New Zealand and how they are changing.
The Social Report provides a tightly circumscribed set of objective and
subjective indicators covering 10 mainly ‘social’ life domains which the
Big City Quality of Life project extends by providing further indicators concerning background population and also economic
development areas, and more extensive environmental indicator coverage.
(See Cotterell and Crothers, 2007 for a discussion of the
interrelationships amongst several different New Zealand indicator
programmes. The CPS slightly expands (compared to
the BC QOL) the range of potential indicators which might be included,
with the particular concern to extend the BC QOL indicators to profiles
constructed at regional or sub-district levels as well as the LA level
and in particular to extend beyond the 12 main cities included thus far.
It also provides a more flexible approach so that the width and depth of
the profiling can be adapted to the goals of each particular exercise
and with the strong recommendation that profiles be developed (1)
incorporating community involvement in goal-setting and also (2) linking
to community decision-making so that communities can see that they are
reaping the benefits of their involvement. CPS is also more concerned
with trends and being orientated to the future. Although the theoretical
and methodological core of the CPS is seen as being located within a
social indicators framework, a range of other approaches, such as needs
analysis or environmental scanning can be readily built into the system.
Charles Crothers with Alex Woodley
April, 2008
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