New research website launched

A new website has been created to provide access to a wide variety of information and research for Wiltshire.

The new site, www.intelligencenetwork.org.uk, was launched last month (July 2010) at the Joint Strategic Assessment stakeholder event.

The resource is available to all and aims to support planners and policy makers, community leaders and politicians, voluntary groups and the general public in using accurate data to make informed decisions. A broad range of information is available, organised into the following topic themes:

Consultation
Local Area Profiles
Population & Census
Health & Wellbeing
Education & Skills
Economy
Crime & Community Safety
Community Planning & Housing
Transport & Communications
Environment, Climate Change,
Waste & Recycling
Culture, Leisure & Tourism

The content of the site will continue to grow over the coming months and the research team is keen to hear any suggestions for content that people would like to see on the site or that they are able to contribute.

This site replaces the original intelligence network website, which was first developed in 2001. As well as being more user-friendly and easy to use, the new site also provides significant savings in annual support and maintenance costs.

Maggie Rae, corporate director of public health and wellbeing, said: “This is a really important development, supporting the widest possible use of evidence in decision making and moving toward a single evidence base – one version of the truth - for Wiltshire.”

The site was developed by Wiltshire Council’s corporate research team in the Department of Public Health and Wellbeing, in conjunction with the South West Observatory and working in partnership with NHS Wiltshire and Wiltshire Police.

For more information, or to give your views and feedback, please contact Sally Hunter on 01225 713289, or email sally.hunter@wiltshire.gov.uk