Michele Grigg is a Senior Policy Advisor in the Community Strategies Team at Napier City Council. She is responsible for developing community strategies and policies, implementing these with the community, managing the Safer Napier programme, and undertaking community engagement and consultation for a range of issues across Council. No two days are the same! Michele is excited about the reintroduction of the four well-beings and the renewed focus this will bring to all parts of Council. In her spare time Michele enjoys travelling, walking her dog Barney and spreading sweetness with the charity ‘Good Bitches Baking’.
How does the incorporation of the four well-beings impact your role at Napier City Council?
I work in the Community Strategies Team of Napier City Council. It’s important to have the work that we do, and have done for some time, recognised with the restoration of the four well-beings (social, cultural, economic, and environmental) into the purpose of local government. They endorse the continuing focus we have on community – working to improve not only the quality of life of our residents, but also the health of our environment and City as a whole.
What are the benefits of the Taituarā Community Well-being Data Service?
The Taituarā Well-being Data Service holds a huge range of information from a number of data sources that ordinarily would take us hours and hours of work, not to mention data purchase costs, to pull together. The team at Taituarā has put in a huge effort to bring all of this information together, in the form of 70 indicators and 234 measures from 116 datasets, for the four well-beings as well as key demographic measures. The Service ensures we are accessing, monitoring and reporting the most up-to-date information available. The measures are wide-ranging and provide a prompt for thinking more broadly about well-being in our community.
What are the most exciting features of the Taituarā Community Well-being Data Service?
One of the Service’s best features is that all of the information is graphically presented in an easy-to-read format. The data behind the graphs is also available at your fingertips, which Council staff can analyse to meet our own needs. The other benefit of the service is that the data is regularly updated as new information becomes available. This is all done by the team at Taituarā, who have set up data sharing agreements with the relevant government agencies and other sources of information, all to make our lives easier. The benefits of the service are huge and it’s great knowing the team at Taituarā are there to answer my queries.
How do you anticipate the use of indicators will help you to improve community well-being?
Easy access to the latest and most relevant data provides a great starting point for discussions with our community about their priorities. Much of this information will be useful for developing community plans with Napier residents. This helps support their local knowledge about what’s important. The indicators will also assist Council monitor progress against our own programmes and Strategies.