July 23, 2025

After last month’s plea to fill in questionnaires and give us lots of lovely data about the local voluntary and community sector (*), this month I promised I’d write about some of the data that’s out there about different communities in Cumbria.

In my experience, most voluntary and community sector groups get on and do stuff that meets a need that’s really obvious to them – they rarely need data to tell them what’s important!

But sometimes it’s useful to have some facts and figures to back up what’s obvious to the folks “on the ground”, particularly when it comes to funding applications and similar.

So where are good places to look for data about Cumbria?

Well, the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory website is certainly a great starting point – it brings together data from sources including the Census, Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and Office for National Statistics, and can give you reports for any Ward in Cumbria, the whole of Cumbria, or several options in between the two.

Want to know about employment rates? Age profiles? Deprivation? House prices? Crime rates? Have a hunt around and see what you can find…….

If you want public health data, try the Fingertips website – this will give you data on alcohol use, cardiovascular disease, vaccination rates, dementia and far more:

Of course, although I can lose myself for hours in a spreadsheet, not everyone wants to go hunting through data sets……. which is where reports pulling some of the data together and summarising key points really come into their own.

Over the last few years, Cumbria Community Foundation have produced “Opportunities and Challenges” reports together for West Cumbria, Furness and Carlisle.

Similarly, both Directors of Public Health produce an Annual Report – the topic of which changes every year. This year’s Cumberland report focuses on healthier aging, whilst Westmorland and Furness are planning to produce shorter reports every six months.

But there’s more to data than spreadsheets, figures and averages! There’s lots of fantastic information produced within the voluntary and community sector, so to finish, let’s have a look at some of the outputs of the South Lakes Poverty Truth Commission.

This kind of data is important, because some things can get lost when you look at the averages – such as the experiences of people living in poverty in a rural area where average incomes are fairly high.

You can find lots of information about SLPTC here, but why not start by watching their short film, “This is our Home”, which was recently used to open a national conference about poverty and tourism, held in York?

(*) And if you’ve not filled in this round of the Third Sector Trends study, there’s still time!

 

 

 

 

Carolyn Otley
CEO
Cumbria CVS