Produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
In Australia, social capital has emerged as an area of great interest to a large number of government agencies, community and welfare organisations, research institutions and community development practitioners. The potential for social capital to make a positive
contribution to outcomes in diverse areas of social concern such as health, community safety and education has captured the interest of policy makers, social analysts and researchers.
Although there is clearly a strong demand on the part of stakeholders for data at a fine geographic scale, approximating that of "local community", it is important to understand that the ABS will not be producing social capital data at a detailed geographic level. The ABS will aim to produce data on social capital at the national and state level. Other agencies may wish to conduct detailed community audits at the local level, using the social capital framework and indicator set that the ABS will produce, and perhaps use national, state and broad regional level data as a benchmark for these audits.