Earlier this year agreement was reached, within the
SWSLG, that a SWSLG sub group be formed to oversee and take
forward work on the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS)
Project as it relates to community care and criminal
justice social work data returns. The
remit for the
members of the sub group included the consideration of
the impact of the Project on the current collections of
local authority community care and criminal justice social
work data, to agree a strategy which will allow the future
collections of data to meet the SNS project requirements
and to pilot, test and approve, as required, agreed
enhancements in data collection.
In addition to considering how the requirements of the
project can be met, the sub group has been considering the
advantages to both local authorities and the Executive in
providing postcoded information. These include the
aggregation of data at multiple geographical levels such as
parish, ward and postcode sector. The choice of different
aggregation levels will assist authorities when planning
and allow for factually backed policy decisions to be made.
Postcoded client databases will also assist in the day to
running of administrative sections.
The sub group is also looking at ways in which GIS
software can be used for social work applications.
The minutes of the sub group meeting and other
associated papers are available on the
SWSLG web site.