Locality Profile Meetings

 

Locality Profiles, created by the Shetland Partnership Community Planning Support Team, combine statistics and data at a local level. They aim to help inform service redesign and planning, while enabling areas to maximise their opportunities to secure funding for local improvement.

Before being published, it was important to make communities aware that they existed and would be available. Feedback was also required from the communities to make sure the profiles were reflective of the areas they represented. There were seven evening meetings held at the end of 2023, alongside Community Council review drop-ins. The meetings provided an opportunity for questions to be asked and suggestions offered, while ensuring they made sense.

What was the desired outcome?

To enable better conversations with communities and use feedback to adjust and adapt the profiles accordingly. The hope was that this would result in the Locality Profiles becoming a tool for their areas so they could evidence their needs for service redesign, planning and funding applications, but also claim some ownership over them.

What was already known?

Locality Profiles were first created in 2018.  These were found to be beneficial and generally easy to read due to their simple visual layout. They also offered a good evidence base for funding applications. Community Workers fed back that updated profiles would be valuable. Opportunities to feed-back last time were appreciated and it would be important to do this again.