Social Need in Nottinghamshire Study

The Social Need in Nottinghamshire Study was launched on 7 May 2004 and is the latest in a series of four, dating back to the early 1970s.

It has been prepared in order to assess the distribution of social need across the geographic county of Nottinghamshire. It should therefore be useful for both policy makers and service deliverers in that it provides pointers to where efforts may need to be directed, both by local authorities and others, to address these needs.

• Executive Summary [PDF]
• Social Need in Nottinghamshire study full document (minus maps) [PDF]
• Social Need in Nottinghamshire study section by section including the maps.

For the purposes of the study, Nottinghamshire is divided into 380 zones which aim to reflect locally identifiable communities with similar social and economic characteristics.

Social need indicators

Twenty two indicators have been selected to cover the main aspects of social need, identified as:

• low income
• poor housing
• poor health and disability
• family difficulties and crime
• educational difficulties
• lack of skills.

A single index of social need has been calculated for each zone by totalling its 'normalised' scores on each of the indicators. The zones have then been ranked on the basis of these scores to identify those with the highest levels of social need.