The economic value of inputs from the community itself to a community road safety partnership

This project assessed the economic value of the community inputs to a Community Road Safety Partnership (CRSP). Information was collected principally by a series of meetings between the research team and partnership committee members and other stakeholders, supplemented by documentation, follow-up telephone calls and emails. This enabled the team to gain an overview of the various activities and their place in community life, and the commitment of paid and volunteer time and other resources required to deliver them. To ensure that all contributions were assessed in a systematic manner, a systematic approach to estimating the value of items such as paid time, volunteer time, travel and venue hire was developed and applied. This assessment of community inputs provided not only an overview of the value of the CRSP to the community, but it also provides useful information for planning the future of the program. For example, the amount of resources put into an activity could be compared with perceptions (or possibly objective measurement) of what it has achieved. The extent of the various inputs gives a guide as to which organisations are already making substantial contributions, and which organisations might possibly have scope for further contributions. The lessons learned in this project were incorporated into a short guide to valuing a CRSP which is intended for use generally throughout Tasmania. It consisted of a set of straightforward instructions that should enable a CRSP to value the inputs to its program, produce an estimate of the overall value of the inputs to the program and identify how resources are allocated across different activities.