National Indicator Set

National Indicator Set Analysis

In October 2006 in the White Paper "Strong and Prosperous Communities" (Communities and Local Government, 2006) the government set out to reduce the amount of indicators from 1800 to less than 200.  

Currently there are 196 indicators made up of 81 current existing indicators; 55 are existing indicators which need recalculation; and 60 are brand new.  Initially 198 indicators were first published in a National Indicator Set: Handbook of Definitions in November 2007, with a second draft in February 2008 and then a third draft in April 2008, in September 2008 the indicators were reduced from 198 to 196 with the loss of two antisocial behavior indicators that were felt already covered by other indicators.  The final draft of the indicators is due early 2009.

Cumbria signed off its second Local Area Agreement (LAA) in June 2008. The targets in the LAA, that runs until the end of March 2011, were agreed locally and negotiated with Government during the first half of 2008. The Agreement includes a total of 80 targets. Some of these are based on indicators selected from the National Indicator Set and there are 16 statutory indicators relating to outcomes for children and young people.

Currently there is no single database or store that holds data and analysis on the LAA in Cumbria, therefore, that is what this analysis was set out to do.  It is a collation of information relating to each indicator contained within the LAA, stored in one location for all partners to use.

This project has been coordinated by the County Council, partners and individual directorates have provided raw data and analysis of the indicators.

It is hoped that this information can be used to help support any future changes to the LAA and also to support the new Comprehensive Area Assessment.

Throughout the analysis comparisons of Cumbria were made against other local authorities.  The comparisons that have been used so far have been those that are used by regulators in individual directorates and other organisations.  At County Council Level where there are no comparatives available a set of four County Councils have been used; Cheshire, Cornwall, Lancashire and Lincolnshire.  These have been used due to their nearest neighbour statistical distance to Cumbria.

The limitations of the analysis are that some of the indicators have never been measured before.  In these cases proxy measures were used, to gain an insight into how well the County is performing.

Below you will find links to whole sections of indicators or just individual indicators.