NPC Local Needs Databank

We have been working with think tank and consultancy NPC to build and contribute to a regularly updated and interactive databank. It was initially designed to help charities and funders see rates of COVID-19 and to identify those that have underlying factors—such as age, health, ethnicity, economic indicators, and multiple deprivation—which may have put them at risk. Now, it has grown into a permanent databank with growing numbers of contributors. Use this databank to find out more about needs and services in your region, and better target your work.

Alongside statistics on local demographics, the dashboards share data from Buttle UK, Turn2us, British Gas Energy Trust, and the Trussell Trust. This allows a better understanding of what charities are experiencing on the ground. This databank shows our applications data, and recent use of the Turn2us benefit calculator. You can find our in depth analysis of the Buttle UK data here and the Turn2us data here.

NPC have done this because there are large amounts of data available from official sources which tell us about the health and economic vulnerability of certain places and communities, but this data is spread across numerous sources and it can be hard to compare with other data.

Different data within our databank will have different importance to different organisations. Users can choose what matters most to them, or what they are best equipped to engage with. This is not intended to be a comprehensive data set. Nor is it intended to provide an index of the most affected or most vulnerable people and places in the UK. For an example of how the databank can be used to inform charitable giving, see the blog we recently wrote about how the databank has been used to inform outreach at Buttle UK.

Thank you to NPC and Turn2us and all other organisations involved for sharing their expertise and data with us. NPC’s interactive Covid-19 data for charities and funders is supported by the Health Foundation, an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.

You can explore the dashboard below.