Government Social Research
31 October 2005 - Launch of the Growing up in Scotland (GUS) study
GUS is a longitudinal survey of parents, and later of children, on a range of topics including parenting, childcare, health and education. The survey involves 8,000 children across the whole of Scotland, 5,000 babies and 3,000 toddlers. GUS runs initially until March 2007 and preliminary findings from the first sweep will be available from around Autumn 2006 on the ESRC UK Data Archive. More details with a full programme for the launch event can be found on the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) website.
28 October 2005 - Scottish Social Attitudes Survey Environment Justice module results published by Scottish Executive
Research by the Scottish Centre for Social Research charts what 'the public' feel about the environment in an innovative but robust and reliable way. It explored how people feel about a wide range of local environmental issues in their own neighbourhoods, mainly the presence of bad 'incivilities', but also the absence of some 'goods' such as open green spaces and safe places to play. The research returned evidence that it is the small-scale street-level incivilities that cause people most concern and irritation (not the big scale infrastructural features like power stations and open quarries), and that people living in the most deprived areas are those most affected by the incidence of incivilities and lack of environmental 'goods'. Further, mental health, wellbeing and sense of community cohesion are all detrimentally related to experience of incivilities, and the report identif ies the 'street-level' incidence of incivilities as critical in any attempt to reduce inequalities in Scotland. So, animal mess and vandalism remain key to the equalities agenda, because these things matter to those who have to put up with them. A research summary is available on the Scottish Executive website.
27 October 2005 - Home Office (HO) publishes Tackling prison drug markets: an exploratory qualitative study
Presents the main, essentially qualitative, findings from this exploratory study of drug supply and demand in six local prisons (five male and one female) in England. As with any small-scale qualitative research, findings should be interpreted with appropriate caution. Interviews were conducted with 121 serving and recently released prisoners (purposefully selected to be knowledgeable about prison drug markets) and 37 staff from the six establishments between June 2003 and March 2004. Data from mandatory drug testing (MDT) and drug-related security information reports (SIRs) were also collated and analysed.
27 October 2005 - Department for Education and Skills (DfES) publishes an extended review of the literature on pupil grouping
Recommendations include:
25 October 2005 - Institute for Public Policy Research publish New directions in community justice which analyses the potential and limits of community justice approaches
Drawing lessons from international and home-grown initiatives, this report also makes a series of concrete recommendations as to how to how the Criminal Justice System in general, and the courts and probation in particular, could be brought closer to the people they exist to serve.
20 October 2005 - Publication of Update from Mathematica
Contents include:
19 October 2005 - Office of Science and Technology (OST) publishes revised Guidelines on Scientific Analysis in Policy Making
Calls for:
19 October 2005 - Study gives MMR vaccine the all-clear (The Guardian article)
An international team of researchers reviewed 31 studies, in what is claimed to be the most systematic review of evidence concerning the effectiveness and safety of the MMR [mumps, measles and rubella] vaccine, for the Cochrane Collaboration, an international charity based in the UK. It examined 139 research articles but discarded more than 100 because they had been conducted in a way that could not rule out bias or error. The team concluded that all the major unintended events, such as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the basis of unreliable evidence. The publicity surrounding a medical research paper published in the Lancet in 1998, had prompted a long-running dispute over the safety of MMR vaccine. If the principle of basing Public health decisions on sound evidence had been applied in the case of the MMR dispute, then all the fuss could have been avoided.
12 October 2005 - Publication of Update from Mathematica
Contents include:
11 October 2005 - DWP publish Research into multiple disadvantaged groups in European Social Fund [ESF] Objective 3 in England (Research report 286)
The research looks at ESF provision within the context of support for multiple disadvantaged groups more generally and seeks to identify more precisely who the 'multiple disadvantaged' are; how ESF adds value to the levels and types of support they might normally receive; and what sort of approaches adopted by current ESF projects might constitute 'best practice' in dealing with such groups. The research was conducted in the second half of 2004 and first half of 2005. It incorporated a review of existing research, in-depth consultations with researchers in the field and over 50 case studies of (mainly) ongoing ESF projects.
7 October 2005 - Scottish Executive, Office of the Chief Researcher publish Joined up working in the Scottish Executive (Research findings no.17)
A qualitative study based on six Scottish Executive policy teams and their experience of joining up. The study aimed to identify the factors that had contributed to their success in this challenging area. Findings include the fact that policy teams faced common challenges when attempting to become more joined up. These challenges fell into three areas: