Using official statistics
The information contained in official statistics can help you in the following ways
- Providing robust data about the profile of the population in your local area
- Providing robust data about how particular issues affect your local area - for example data can be used to give you a greater understanding of your local population and the issues affecting your local area in order to
- Plan services
- Provide evidence for aims and objectives in the Forward Plan - for example, the Scottish Neighbourhood Survey statistics show a high number of care homes for older people so an agreed objective may be to plan services for this group
- Tailor education programmes - for example, if there is a high proportion of primary schools, focusing on programmes for this age-group will probably result in more school visits, than trying to cater for lower proportions of secondary schools or higher education
- Plan audience development activities
- Identify potential new audiences - for example, families, older people
- Plan exhibitions, displays and outreach, and research content – for example, the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey could be used by museums wanting to tackle discrimination or sectarianism
- Identify areas for partnership working - for example, the Scottish Household Survey gives attitudes towards recycling. Partnership with environmental organisations could produce a programme to explore these issues
- Identify groups to target advertising for volunteers to - for example, high proportion of unemployed people, so promote the skills / well-being benefits of volunteering
- Make the case for funding a project - for example, the Pupils Census statistics show the main home language of pupils so this could be used to support a request for funding to revise marketing materials to include appropriate translations
You could also use official statistics to strengthen the case for a project when applying to our grants schemes, and to think about audiences in relation to your marketing plans.
If you do decide to use official statistics, don’t forget to say where you got the figures from. This will help both any readers of your document, and you if there is anything you need to go back and check.
Details of official statistics available can be viewed on the page Links to Official Statistics.
To see research reports containing official statistics relating specifically to culture, please go to the Research by Other Organisations page on this website.