2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Institutional Context 17
and when assigned tasks have been accomplished. These data can also
form the basis of more comprehensive management. In planning and
implementing a department’s activities more broadly, managers look
at trends in the scale and composition of workloads and associated
costs. Higher-level leaders in government use the same data in assessing
the department’s performance (see discussion of PerformanceStat in
Fleming’s essay following this chapter). Finally, the jurisdiction’s elected
officials or appointed managers, other top leaders, and central departments
(such as the budget bureau and planning department) use data
produced by their various departments, in combination with external
data, for planning and management of the government’s agenda overall,
across departments.
Other Individual Local Institutions
The list of other types of local institutions involved with community
information is a long one. These local institutions both create data that
can be turned into community information and make use of that data
themselves in ways similar to those we have described for general-purpose
local governments.
First, other public-sector institutions, most prominently school systems,
keep detailed records. Virtually all school districts maintain regularly
updated information on their individual students (e.g., test scores,
absenteeism, graduation records), a practice highly valued for community
indicators. Public hospitals and other public-sector health care providers
are also in this category. They create a record when they provide
service to someone, but those visits are sporadic and providers obtain
minimal information about the people they serve.
Second are the numerous community groups and community-oriented
nonprofit organizations that exist in all American cities. Importantly,
these include community development corporations (CDCs) and other
grass-roots neighborhood groups that work to improve community
neighborhood well-being; as noted in chapter 1, these groups are primary
clients for NNIP. This second group also includes nonprofit service
providers as wide-ranging as child care centers, family financial counselors,
community health clinics, charter schools, and homeless shelters.
Groups that serve individuals are more likely to keep automated records
on them now than they were a decade ago, but data quality is still likely to
be less consistent than that of public agencies providing similar services.