As local authorities continue to face difficult decisions amid ongoing austerity measures, Joseph Rowntree Foundation has worked with partners to produce a tool to help councils assess the impact of cuts on services and the public. Developed with a team from the University of Glasgow and I-SPHERE, Heriot-Watt University, the release of the tool follows a report for Joseph Rowntree Foundation in to the effects of local authority cuts on poorer communities (see our previous blog about the report here).
Called The cost of the cuts: A social impact tool for local authorities, it can help you:
- produce a robust assessment of the implications of your savings plans for service user groups experiencing varying levels of socio-economic deprivation
- analyse the extent to which distinctive population and service user groups experience different levels of cumulative service change
- track change over time in the social impact of savings
- conduct scenario planning or options appraisal
- encourage informed debate about the differential impact of savings
- benchmark your results against those of other local authorities.
The Tool is free to access and easy to use and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation are hosting a free event in London on 26 November in partnership with Solace to look at the Social Impact Tool in more detail.
Alternatively if you require one to one support you can email Professor Annette Hastings or Maria Gannon, Research Associate at the University of Glasgow.