This project's final report and evaluation was completed on 31 October 2021

Project approach

The S&HLGA has developed South Australia’s first set of Indicators of Community Wellbeing for Local Government to track issues that are important to our communities, for public health, strategic planning and service provision.

Council officers report challenges in finding data and feeling confident using it. To address this, we created the Indicators of Community Wellbeing report. It is an updatable e-book containing 20 indicators of community wellbeing, a road map of ideas for data development for data gaps, and case studies and links to more detailed data to provide more context.

The indicator framework covers topics important to our communities under three themes:

1. The health of our environment: nature (tree canopy coverage); a sustainable future (greenhouse gas emissions, household recycling, council use of recycled water).
2. The opportunities in our places: services that make places liveable (growth of jobs and businesses, internet access, transport disadvantage, cultural and community facilities – visits to libraries); accessibility (low-income households, housing stress, feel safe on the street after dark, discrimination, accessibility of public spaces).
3. The strength of our communities: social connection/participation (social isolation, participation in community groups, volunteering); opportunities for play, recreation, and exercise (on track in the first year of school, physically inactive, walkability); opportunities to have a say (voting in local elections).

This provides a tool for evidence-based decision-making that has not been available to councils before, to track important aspects of community wellbeing at both the LGA and regional level, and to inform a wide range of public health initiatives.

Project achievements

1. Steering Group was established and Terms of Reference agreed (Oct 2019).  Steering Group included representatives from Southern & Hills LGA, four rural and urban councils (Victor Harbor, Adelaide Hills, Barossa and Port Adelaide Enfield), SA Health, Wellbeing SA and PHIDU. 12 people were involved in the 6 meetings of the Steering Group.
2. RFQ was developed and the procurement process was completed in December 2019.
3. Consultant commenced in January 2020
4. Communication Plan was developed
5. Stakeholder engagement included relevant contacts in local governments that had done indicator projects or actively working on them, presentation to Community Managers Network Feb - March 2020
6. Environment scan was conducted  Feb - March 2020.
7. The project was put on hold in April 2020 at the request of the Steering Group (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) and recommenced in January 2021.
8. Targeted consultation of 5 regional workshops with groups of Council officers across all the Southern and Hills LGA member councils (31 senior officers in attendance) was completed in February 2021. The community plans of the LGA were additionally reviewed beforehand to determine the stories of community importance the set should be based on. The indicators were iterated through each workshop
   1. with the development discussed at each, then presented at the next.
   2. A draft indicator set of 20 main outcome indicators, with some supporting local government action indicators, was determined.
   3. A draft product was written up (but not fully populated with data) for further targeted consultation.
9. Consultation with the broader Local Government sector and other public health stakeholders was organised in three workshops in May 2021. One of these was held online so that regional councils could participate. 62 people were engaged with these workshops. The draft Indicator framework was revised to incorporate the feedback from the workshop participants. There was a positive response to the proposed format (e-book) and the content and approach to indicator selection, data, case studies, contextual information and structure of the draft Indicators of Community Wellbeing report.
10. The draft Indicator Framework was discussed with the Community Manager's Network and the SA Public Health Council.
11. The Indicator Framework was populated with data to create the first Indicators of Community Wellbeing report for the Southern & Hills LGA region. This was presented to the S&HLGA Board and approved (August 2020)
12. A User Guide is not required, as the e-book format is very user friendly with embedded links to data sources. Evaluation Report was prepared (October 2021).

Project outputs and outcomes

Project evaluation

The project Manager (Penny Worland) developed a Program Logic framework and used this to collect data and prepare the evaluation, with input from the Steering Group and the project consultant.

Penny Worland, with input and review by Katherine Pontifex (Manager, Evaluation Services at Wellbeing SA) and Jeanette Pope (project consultant).