Government Social Research
BERR Conference Centre
Working with businesses, employees and consumers to drive up UK productivity and competitiveness and deliver prosperity for all.
Social research contributes to the provision of evidence to inform policy formulation and evaluation in a number of ways, through:
Social researchers in BERR are located in four separate analytical units:
Government Social Researchers in BERR generally work alongside social science analysts; including, economists, statisticians, operations researchers and systems analysts.
EMAR’s work is focused around its strategic objective to “maximise potential in the workplace” by ensuring that the Employment Relations research programme reflects policy priorities and that the investment in research provides value. Located in the Directorate responsible for employment legislation, a great deal of EMAR’s work is focused on the impact and effectiveness of legislation; including such things as the National Minimum Wage, the Working Time Regulation, employment equalities and work-life balance legislation.
RES’s work is mainly focused upon the evaluation of services provided by Acas, addressing questions of effectiveness, efficiency and impact. It also undertakes policy relevant employment relations research projects and undertakes joint work with EMAR, including the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) and the Survey of Employment Tribunal Applications SETA).
The EDAU’s work is to generate, gather, co-ordinate and research relevant to enterprise creation and growth in the UK. The team provide research evidence to support the development of enterprise policy, improve the evidence to appraise the costs and benefits of new initiatives, and to ensure that lessons learned in the delivery of programmes are fed back into improved service design. The team works closely with a wide range of stakeholders, including academics, the ESRC, the devolved administrations, and small business representative bodies to promote knowledge transfer, avoid duplication in research efforts, and ensure that full use is made of research evidence in informing policy debate.
Finally, a social researcher has recently joined the Evaluation team within the Chief Economist’s office of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The OFT is a non-ministerial government department with the primary purpose of making markets work well for consumers. This is achieved by enforcing competition and consumer protection law, as well as investigating particular markets.
EMAR has 14 professional analytical staff including 7 GSR staff. The research budget for 2007/8 is approximately £740K. This does not include funding of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS), which is jointly funded by BERR, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Acas and the Policy Studies Institute (PSI). The next survey is being planned for 2010. EMAR is located the Employment Relations (ER) policy directorate, which is part of the Fair Market’s Directorate. The Branch is headed by Grant Fitzner. John McQueeney is Head of Research.
Acas is staffed by 6 Government Social Researchers. The research budget for 2007/8 is £230K. RES located in Acas’s Head Office in the Knowledge, Strategy and Research Directorate The Section is headed by Fiona Neathey.
EDAU has 11 professional analytic staff, including five Government Social Researhers. There are three analytical teams within the Unit. Government Social Researchers are located within the Research and Evaluation team, which works closely with EDAU’s statisticians and economists. The Enterprise Directorate has a research budget for 2007/8 of, approximately, £800K, in addition to expenditure on evaluation. The Research and Evaluation team is based in Sheffield. EDAU is headed by Katrina Reid, a BERR economist. David Purdy, a Senior Principal Research Officer, is, the Deputy Head of the Unit, is based in London. GSR work is mainly focused on policy development relating to the Enterprising Environment and Enterprising People and Communities.
The OFT analytical team has one GSR staff member who works within the Evaluation Team and is involved in undertaking and commissioning research to develop the evidence base on particular topics. The work of the evaluation team includes projects related to external accountability, to evaluate whether the OFT delivers its objectives and does so cost effectively to the taxpayer and Parliament; and, internal management, to help inform prioritisation of work and choice of methods of intervention that are likely to have the greatest impact, and how best to follow these through.
EMAR aims to provide timely and cost effective employment market analysis in support of policy development. Employment Relations aims to put in place a framework of law and regulation ensuring fair treatment for employees and employers in a skilled and flexible labour market founded on the principles of social partnership. The research section co-ordinates and manages Employment Relations’ research and evaluation programme; conducts in-house research and analysis; commissions external research; and provides advice and briefing to policy colleagues.
RES conducts a mix of commissioned projects and internal studies. The Section works closely with the Acas Council, senior management and policy colleagues both from Head Office and the network of Acas regional offices, to develop an appropriate programme of work to meet the broad strategic issues set out in the Acas corporate plan as well as respond to emerging policy development issues.
GSR staff in the EDAU manage the Small Business Survey of 8,000 small and medium sized enterprises, a household survey of around 6,000 adults exploring their entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, key evaluation studies; and, provide briefing and analysis on small business issues. It also contributes to the BERR’s Business Support Simplification Project, drawing on the evidence base it has developed on improving SME experience of Government services. The Unit was short listed for Whitehall Award on evidence based policymaking in 2006.
EMAR research programme is published on the EMAR website and Labour Market Trends, both of which are regularly updated. The research programme relates to Employment Relations’ policy objective of promoting competitive business and jobs through flexible, fair labour markets. Major new projects to be commissioned this year includes the Survey of Employment Tribunals Applications and the Second Fair Treatment at Work Survey (in conjunction with Acas).
RES’ current programmes include evaluations of the economic impact
of employment relations services delivered by Acas, the effectiveness of
Acas’ workplace projects; and the impact of tailored Acas workplace
training in selected organisations. RES will also conduct Acas’ annual
customer feedback surveys, commissioning research to investigate the views
of: parties in Acas Individual Conciliation; users of the Acas advisory
services; and, delegates attending Acas’ national programme of training
events. Acas RES is also finalising qualitative research amongst parties
in Race Discrimination Employment Tribunal cases and a programme of research
on Collective Conciliation.
RES has also invited employment relations academics to submit proposals
for research partnerships in areas which are of strategic interest to Acas,
including: Employee Involvement Arrangements; Dispute Resolution; Diversity
at work; Employment relations changes and challenges in the context of 2012
Olympics; Management and representation of employees with mental health
problems; Employment strategies for rehabilitation of long term sick.
EDAU’s research and evaluation programme includes: the Annual Small Business Survey, Household Survey on Entrepreneurship, Evaluation of key policy areas including for example Small Firm Loan Guarantee Scheme, Women’s Enterprise Pilots, Impact of regulation on small firms; and, Research on growth and the different behaviours and attitudes of UK and US entrepreneurs.
If you like to know more about research in Enterprise Directorate please contact either David Purdy (0207-215-6397) or George Bramley (0114-279-4448).
OFT’s research and evaluation activities can be found at: www.oft.gsi.gov.uk.
EMAR aims to publish most of its commissioned research in the Employment Relations Research Series. A limited number of copies are printed and are available free. All, however, are also published electronically and can be downloaded from our Website (PDF format). Reports and papers that are of minority or very specialist interest are not published in the Research Series but are made available on our Website. EMAR policy is to lodge all survey datasets in the ESRC Data Archive. Key facts and briefings materials are also published on the Website: www.berr.gov.uk/publication
In Acas considerable emphasis is placed on internal dissemination of research findings to inform policy and practice, both at Head Office and regional level, with verbal and written presentations. Written material is also on the Acas website and in the Acas Research Paper and policy paper series.
The Enterprise Directorate Analytical Unit publishes its research on the BERR website – www.berr.gov.uk (reached through ‘Better Business Framework’ and then ‘Small Business’).
OFT produces a wide range of publications which can be downloaded from its website. For further details see www.oft.gov.uk.