The Understanding Scottish Places platform was commissioned by the Scottish Government. It offers a mechanism for understanding the similarity of places across Scotland. Deliberately designed to avoid a simplistic ranking of places as better or worse, USP focuses on the shared characteristics of towns.
The platform is formed of three parts. The first two elements have been created using national data sets - a new typology of Scottish towns, and an assessment of towns’ inter-relationships. The third part of the platform is the USP Your Town Audit, which is designed to help users gather local information which complements the national data available through USP.
The tool is useful when looking at demographics, deprivation index, employment rates etc. and can help you to compare against similar sized communities across the rest of Scotland. This information supports arguments for change demonstrating the needs in your community.