London Civic Strength Tool

The Tool can be used by communities, civil society leaders, policymakers, funders, and commissioners to:  

• understand the strengths of their communities and how best to build on them  

• understand how levels of civic strength interact with other key indicators set out in existing datasets (such as the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, Living Costs and Food Survey)  

• support local and pan-London organisations to identify opportunities to share good practice, fill gaps in provision, and respond to the needs of communities.

• think in new ways about assets within communities, particularly where the Tool’s framework is used as a guide.

In partnership with the GLA’s City Intelligence Unit, we’ve built a Data Explorer to contextualise and visualise the most up-to-date version of the Tool.  

 Image: Screengrab from the Data Explorer Hub dated 10 July 2024. 

Underlying data can be downloaded from the London Datastore.

The CST was co-created with over 700 Londoners through pan-London workshops with community representatives, and a Talk London survey in 2021. This consultation uncovered three domains of civic strength: (1) Relationships and Social Capital, (2) Democratic Engagement, and (3) Public and Social Infrastructure. 

Image: Civic Strength Tool framework 

The Tool’s index relies on open-source datasets to measure indicators for each of the domains. Gaps exist due to the lack of consistency of data being collected across London, and in partnership with Impact on Urban Health, the GLA launched a funding programme -  Civic Data Innovation Challenge inviting communities to identify ways to plug data gaps. 

The first version of the tool provided an early view of civic strength ‘hotspots’ across London. Users were able to see mixes of strength in their local area through a postcode lookup tool.

Image: A choropleth map produced as part of CST Version 1. 

The Young Foundation report made some recommendations to further develop the work and that was taken forward by WPI Economics along with a steering group–comprised of data experts, community groups, academics, and policymakers—which resulted in the current version of the Index as Civic Strength Tool.  

Among the changes, was a clearer split between borough- and ward-level indicators to increase data transparency. Few redundant measures were eliminated and, relevant proxies were introduced for some of the data gaps. This effort has made the CST more robust and reliable, whilst expanding its reach. 

In 2023, the GLA Economic Regeneration Team used the Tool’s data-led index to identify priority areas for a new place-based regeneration fund, the Civic Participation Fund. Alongside traditional measures such as the IMD, the CST offered, “a really useful alternative way of thinking about community need” and helped the team to target areas with gaps in public and social infrastructure and thus build civic strength through their investment. Though some of the Tool's underlying data remains incomplete, this early work demonstrates the CST's value in offering more nuanced insights on London's communities.    

The CST has also been used by London Borough of Waltham Forest to inform their corporate strategy, the 15-Minute Neighbourhood approach. It has also been cited by The Young Foundation, London Funders, the Human Rights and Equalities Network, Impact on Urban Health, the International Public Policy Observatory, London Plus, and other high-profile organisations working to bridge the divide between civil society and policymakers. 

If you would like to learn more about the tool, please email [email protected] and we can arrange a conversation.