Partnership Zone

There are a number of key documents written by the NHS, City Council and other public sector organisations that talk about what is important to Nottinghamshire. Funders will want to know that your project is important to Nottingham and that there is a need for it. Below are key documents that will help you to do this:

Sustainable Community Strategy

Local authorities are required by the Local Government Act 2000 to prepare these, with the aim of improving the social, environmental and economic well-being of their areas. The Nottingham SCS provides a route map for organisations in the city which will help us work together with local people, our diverse communities, voluntary groups and businesses and all our partners in One Nottingham to make positive change happen.

The SCS has a series of themes affecting the future development of Nottingham these include health, neighbourhoods, employment, crime, families etc. We advise that the Community & Voluntary sector organisations understand the SCS within Nottingham to help inform how their work matches the priorities for the City which the statutory sector will wish to fund.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) tells a story of communities in terms of their health and well-being. The JSNA in Nottingham helps the local authority, Primary Care Trust and Local Strategic Partnership to better understand the needs of the population so they can plan and organise services. The JSNA is broken down into a series chapter which often overlap with the focus of Community & Voluntary and sector organisations within eg mental health, children and young people, substance misuse etc. To help create a credible evidence base for your work the JSNA is a good starting point.

Five-year PCT Health Strategy

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are responsible for buying local health services and improving the health of the local population. They produce a 5 year strategy which describes the main health problems and needs, and identifies a number of targets they will aim to meet, to improve things. The PCT will then buy services based on the priorities in the strategy, so it is a useful document for potential providers of these services to make themselves familiar with. Locally, NHS Nottingham City, Nottinghamshire County and Bassetlaw each have their own separate strategies.

There is often a lot of research that has been already conducted about your project area; we hold an extensive database of documentation here at Nottingham Insight.

Type a keyword (e.g. "diabetes", "housing") into the Document search to find out what information we hold. There is also the option to pass this search over to Google (this opens in a new window). We don't offer any warranty for these results, but there are often useful resources from other organisations available.

Sometimes funders want to know what specific statistics support your funding application. This is when you might need to have a look at data. The best place to start is to get an idea of what is happening across the district. You can start by having a look at the Ward Report to see what is happening across the district, and how this differs to your particular area.

You can also look at data for particular topic areas. Choose a Profile and then select the topic area you are interested in, as well as the location your project is helping.

If you require specific data to monitor the effectiveness of your project, search for data. If you require help deciding on what data would be best to use, contact your local fundraising advisor.