Current Research and Development
Work
Development of Social Capital
Indicators Toolkit - follow-up
to launch of VCU/CENI research report.
Measuring Weak Community Infrastructure
in Norhern Ireland -
Royal Irish Academy Research Project 2004
Social Capital Indicators Toolkit
- update on CENI/VCU research
The Voluntary and Community Unit, within DSD, hosted a meeting
at the Farset Centre in Belfast in April 2004 to present the draft
of a ‘Tool-Kit’ designed to assist organisations to
measure local social capital. This is a follow up to the CENI/VCU
research report launched in April 2003, which identified a number
of indicators around the concept of social capital. The work has
now progressed to the stage of developing this useful set of tools
which will assist with the base lining and measurement of social
capital in local areas. The tool-kit identifies sources of existing
data which can be trawled to profile area social capital. In addition
a number of questions for use in local surveys have been identified.
The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the proposed toolkit
with a wider audience to determine its relevance and potential usability
by funders and voluntary and community sector organisations.
There has been a long-standing debate in Northern Ireland about
the uneven functional and geographic development of community and
voluntary sector infrastructure. Weak Community Infrastructure tends
to operate at the interface of functional and geographic underdevelopment.
The concern has been that areas with a well-developed infrastructure
receive a disproportionate share of mainstream and EU funding and
support and this situation clearly needs to be redressed.
Th final DSD report 'Toolkit to Measure the Added Value of Voluntary and Community Based Activity' was launched in January 2006 and is available on the DSD website and can be found here: http://www.dsdni.gov.uk/toolkit_to_measure_the_added_value_of_voluntary_and_community_base_activity.doc
Measuring Weak Community Infrastructure in Norhern Ireland
- Royal Irish Academy Research Project 2004
CENI has been awarded a research grant to carry out a research project
which will seek to identify a robust set of indicators for measuring
weak community infrastructure across Northern Ireland. A model will
be developed using data sets from sources including the Northern
Ireland Neighbourhood Information System, the Department for Social
Development NI Benefits Data, the Noble Index of Multiple Deprivation,
the NICVA Census of the Community and Voluntary Sector and other
relevant and available sources. A scoring system will be developed
to incorporate levels of social capital, community capacity, community
capability and community quality of life across Northern Ireland
at ward level. A partnership of key stakeholders from the public,
private and voluntary sectors will be identified to act as scorers.
Based on these scores, statistical analysis based on the data sets
listed above will attempt to identify variables which best predict
weak community infrastructure. Qualitative data will be collected
via discussions with those stakeholders involved in the scoring
throughout the research process and this will be used to add further
explanatory value and detail to the findings of the statistical
analysis. The results of the research will be used to advocate change
in government policy, particularly in terms of the allocation of
funds for areas of weak community infrastructure.
A briefing paper was produced in November 2005 and is available here:
Mapping Social Capital: A Model for Investment
|
