Criteria for inclusion in the Community Directory

The Community Directory is a mixture of records from the City and Hackney Community Information Database and COMIS information systems. The databases evolved differently over the years for different audiences and, as a result, new rules on content needed to be established. The following guidelines were agreed by members of the cross sector partnership City and Hackney Information Partnership meeting, Tuesday 26 September 2000.

1. Priority for inclusion should be given to all local statutory and voluntary organisations which offer services to local (City and Hackney) residents.
2. Include some London-wide and national organisations, where there is no similar provision available locally.
3. Wherever possible, include information which has been fully provided by or checked by the organisation itself and agreed for public release. This includes explaining clearly to the group what the information is to be used for - giving them the option to refuse to be included or hide certain details about their organisation.
4. Take extra care to ensure that information relating to new and emerging community groups has been agreed for release, and that details for these groups have been validated in some way (eg. official letterhead, charity number, funding/umbrella body authorisation). Where an organisation is not a registered charity, this information should be made clear on the entry itself.
5. Where information is obtained from a third party (eg. Tenant Participation Unit, Education etc.) - the source of the information needs to be acknowledged and referenced on the database with prior agreement from the original information provider. Checks will also be made as to the quality standard of this information in light of the agreed criteria for inclusion.
6. Exclude any private/commercial bodies from the database - unless they are part of a public/private partnership or have a charitable arm, in which case the relevant project may be listed.
7. Exclude any organisations/services which are only of use to people within the same organisation - eg. internal Council departments which serve only internal clients.
8. Exclude any confidential details about an organisation - eg. home addresses/numbers, refuge addresses, contact names - unless given explicit permission to do so by the organisation itself.
9. Where a member of the general public cannot access a service directly these services may be included (given the large numbers of organisations/professionals using the information) but the referral route to the service needs to be made clear in the text.
10. Exclude any organisation which has failed to respond to repeated mailings, phone calls and other means of investigation.
11. Include only organisations where a minimum amount of data is available (name, contact number and/or address and nature of service).

Copyright London Borough of Hackney, 2000
Tel: 020 8356 3112/2766, e-mail: communitydirectory@hackney.gov.uk

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Page updated: 9 Jun 2008