Knowing Your Communities Toolkit
Please note, the Knowing your Communities toolkit is currently being updated; the information within the tool may have been superseded and should not be considered in isolation. As part of the refresh process, we would welcome your comments. We are particularly interested in hearing how you would like to use the tool and any suggestions for additional supporting materials. The draft tools and an email address to provide your feedback can be found towards the bottom of this page. It is anticipated that a revised version of the toolkit will be available in early 2009; in the meantime, please contact userfocus@audit-commission.gov.uk if you have any queries or comments.
To enter a self-assessment please click on one of the titles below.
Community Engagement
Customer Focus
Race
Gender (draft)
Age Equality: Older People
Age Equality: Young People
Disability
Sexual Orientation
Religion
Human Rights
This toolkit is designed to help councils:
- assess their current progress;
- benchmark their progress with others; and
- understand what they need to do to improve their performance.
The toolkit is closely linked to corporate assessments and service inspection frameworks where inspectors judge how well councils engage with service users and local communities, and what difference such engagement makes in practice.
Closely linked to the Local Government Equality Standard – the sector’s key measure of progress on equality - the toolkit provides additional support for councils wishing to improve their performance in this area. The Equality Standard has been adopted by 86% of authorities since 2002/3.
Each self-assessment gives a high level overview of current progress and potential next steps. When completed, the results can be benchmarked with other councils. Each tool also provides relevant examples of notable practice and links to other web-based resources to support councils developing action and improvement plans.
Knowing Your Communities Consultation
The challenges facing public services require a real understanding of the needs of citizens, people who use services and taxpayers.The Knowing Your Communities toolkit reflects the Audit Commission's commitment to putting service users and citizens at the heart of public service improvement. First issued in 2006, the toolkit is a set of improvement tools and supporting resources. It is now being updated and revised to help public bodies and partnerships to understand and act on the needs of the communities they service and to promote equality and tackle inequalities. The toolkit supports a deeper understanding of diverse local needs, covering community engagement, different aspects of diversity, and human rights.
We welcome your views on the draft revisions. We would also like to know what supporting materials would be useful to you, and how you would like to use the toolkit. We plan to replace the current Knowing Your Communities toolkit with the revised version early in 2009. Examples of the proposed checklists are available below and the email address for all responses is userfocus@audit-commission.gov.uk. The closing date for responses is the 31st March 2009.
If you would like any further information about the checklists, please email userfocus@audit-commission.gov.uk.