Government Social Research
These and other reports can be downloaded at the BERR website
International review of leave policies and related research 2007 (PDF 1791KB) - annual report on leave policies, prepared by the International Network on Leave Policies and Related Research. An invaluable reference for international comparisons of policies and leave entitlements.
Work-life policies in Great Britain: what works, where and how? (PDF 3137KB)
Re-assessing the family-friendly workplace: trends and influences in Britain, 1998-2004 (PDF 1447KB)
The influence of legal representation at employment tribunals on case outcome (PDF 433KB)
The costs and benefits of employment tribunal cases for employers and claimants (PDF 397KB)
The settlement of employment tribunal cases: evidence from SETA 2003 (PDF 965KB)
Young people's awareness and experience of Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) and their impact on choices and pathways - combines qualitative and quantitative methods and finds that there were some positive effects, including improvement in the attendance and punctuality of some young people. However, the EMA was not an influential factor in staying on at school for the majority of young people. The low number of pupils deemed to be at risk of becoming NEET involved meant that there was limited evidence to ascertain whether the EMA is having an impact on NEET prevention.
Young people's awareness and experience of Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) and their impact on choices and pathways
Research Findings summary
Ninth report: international policies and activities of the Research Councils (HC 472-I) (PDF)
Eighth report Chairman of the Medical Research Council: introductory hearing (HC 746) (PDF)
The debate was sparked by an article in Science entitled "Framing science", which argued that stating the facts is not enough if scientists want to communicate technical complexities in the news and that scientists should pare down complex technical issues and learn to actively "frame" the information to make it relevant to different audiences.
Almost immediately the science blogosphere was filled with heated discussions on the topic.
List of the blog posts and discussions
Critics said that "framing science" is just another way of saying spin, and that scientists should never sacrifice the facts or the message no matter who their audience is.
More than half the official measurements show improvement. For the first time, wellbeing indicators covering life satisfaction, participation in sport, access to greenspace, participation in cultural activities and positive mental health, are included.
Latest edition of the annual Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2007
See also:Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN)'s work on wellbeing and to access the SDRN Online Wellbeing Bibliography
Final report by Atkins Transport Planning, which was commissioned by the Department for Transport to undertake a study to assess options for the development of its policies for local transport planning in England. The consultation, Local Transport Planning: The next steps, contains proposals based on some of the options explored in this review.
Department for Transport publish Review of future options for local transport planning in England (P 1.0 Mb)
Minority ethnic pupils in the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England - looks at the relationships between various pupil, family, school and neighbourhood factors in order to better understand the reasons for differences in the educational attainment of different ethnic groups.
Deployment and impact of support staff in schools: report on findings from the second national questionnaire survey of schools, support staff and teachers (strand one, wave two - 2006) - looks at the deployment and characteristics of all categories of support staff in primary, secondary and special schools in England and Wales. It presents results from a second large-scale, nationally representative postal survey of schools, support staff and teachers, conducted in 2006. The first wave was conducted in 2004.
Minority ethnic pupils in the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (PDF 1.09 Mb)
Deployment and impact of support staff in schools: report on findings from the second national questionnaire survey of schools, support staff and teachers (strand one, wave two - 2006) (PDF format, 1.19 Mb)
Royal Assent to the Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007) and the House of Commons' confirmation of Sir Michael Scholar's appointment as the first Chair of the Statistics Board, following publication of the Treasury Select Committee Ninth Report: the appointment of the Chair of the Statistics Board (HC 934-I) which describes the role and functions of the new Statistics Board.
This inquiry and Report related to the first occasion on which the very recent Government proposals to strengthen the role of the House of Commons in public appointments have been tested. Report concludes with reflections arising from the process and suggestions about the information that should be available to select committees, the time at which it should be available and the role such committees might play in the appointment process.
Royal Assent to the Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007)
Australia, France and the United Kingdom: helping youth into the labour market: a community responsibility to maintain social cohesion?
Youth is often equated to the dynamics of transitions between various states: from adolescence to adulthood, from school to work, from family protection to personal responsibility. Often labelled as the age group with the highest unemployment rate, young people are seen as having specific needs which involve specific risks. In the late 1990s newly elected governments seemed keen on launching programmes which - at least in the beginning - targeted young people: Work for the Dole in Australia, the Emplois-Jeunes programme in France, or the New Deal for Young People in the United Kingdom. As most programmes hinted at the necessity to include young people into the broader community, there could be a point in analysing the diverse methods and rhetorics used. The focus on the obligations young people have to fulfil to be considered as good citizens, the suggestion that they are a potential threat to community building may have found a different echo in those three countries. The part played by the community in the inclusion process must also be considered as it reveals the legitimacy of the state in tackling social issues.
The document sets out a strategy for 30 years of growth. The railway will expand to carry at least 180 million more passengers. Capacity will increase to cope with more than 20 per cent growth in the next seven years, on a network which will be even safer and more reliable. It must also be a railway which sharpens its environmental performance and thrives on new technology, the strategy makes clear.
Delivering a sustainable railway
Delivering a sustainable railway: Summary of key research and analysis - compilation of the main evidence that underpins the analysis in the White Paper 'Delivering a sustainable railway'. There is also a set of supporting documents..
The report summarises the findings from a study of attrition in reported rape cases. It is based on case file analysis of 676 offences of female rape recorded by the police in 2003/04 in eight forces in England and Wales. Highlights the importance of victim withdrawal in the loss of cases from the criminal justice system. A range of offence, offender, investigation and victim characteristics were found to significantly predict case outcomes. Much of the decline in recorded detection rates for rape since 1997 appears to be due to the impact of changes in the way that offences and detections are recorded.
Investigating and detecting recorded offences of rape
JRF are not defining social evil in any detail. Once gathered, JRF will place the contributions within an analytical framework to understand them and explore how a number of them might be addressed through JRF evidence based research. JRF also hope that this work will help inform the work of other organisations seeking to address social ills.
The second annual monitoring of the RIPSS Public Sector Research Establishment (PSRE) sustainability.
Public Sector Research Establishments (PSREs), including Research Council Institutes (RCIs), collectively represent a world-class resource for UK science. Their sustainable performance, alongside universities, is of strategic importance to the UK. As part of the commitment made in the Science and Investment Framework for PSREs to move towards financial sustainability, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) runs an annual monitoring exercise on PSRE sustainability.
The second annual monitoring of the RIPSS Public Sector Research Establishment (PSRE) sustainability
Social capital and its popularity - short paper from the 2007 Australian Social Policy Conference looks at the extent of the spread of the notion of 'social capital', and investigates a number of the reasons given in the literature for its popularity. Concludes that the question of why 'social capital' continues to prevail, despite its dubious epistemological status, can most usefully be explored by asking who stands to benefit (if anyone) from its continued usage.
Social capital and its popularity
A guide to sources of local data and statistics in the south west. It also includes details of sources of help and advice available across the south west region.
Creating:excellence publish South West Local Evidence Guide (PDF)
Joseph Rowntree Foundation publish Poverty, wealth and place in Britain 1968 to 2005 which uses a new way of comparing poverty and wealth trends across Britain to show that inequality has reached levels not seen for over 40 years. A second report, Public attitudes to economic inequality, finds that the public believes the gap between rich and poor people is too large.
Poverty, wealth and place in Britain 1968 to 2005 finds that households in already-wealthy areas have tended to become disproportionately wealthier and that many rich people live in areas segregated from the rest of society. At the same time, more households have become poor over the last 15 years, but fewer are very poor.
The data on each area of the country and definitions of how the Poverty, wealth and place in Britain report defines poverty and wealth are available at the Social and Spatial Inequalities website.
Poverty, wealth and place in Britain 1968 to 2005
Public attitudes to economic inequality
Evidence & Policy is the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to comprehensive and critical treatment of the relationship between research evidence and the concerns of policy makers and practitioners, as well as researchers.
Policy Press publish Evidence & Policy Volume 3, Number 2. Table of contents
Contents include:
Mathematica semimonthly update
The publication says that Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs) should be a cornerstone of evidence-based policy making but NAO results indicate that they were not always being used effectively. The majority of RIAs were competent, with fewer cases of poor quality analysis, although there were continued weaknesses in the quality of economic analysis and insufficient consideration of the impact of proposed changes. All too often, however, RIAs were not an integral part of the policy making process as they were not used to inform and facilitate all stages of policy formation - from initial development through to implementation and review.
Evaluation of Regulatory Impact Assessments 2006-07
Statistics Commission Annual Report for 2006/07 (PDF)
The report aimed to form an up-to-date multidisciplinary view of the influences on children’s and young people’s food choice within the family setting, and identify specific research the FSA could commission as part of its Food Acceptability & Choice and Food Choice Inequalities research programmes. Achieving these objectives contributes towards developing more effective interventions to improve nutrition in children, within the family and in the broader community.
Report of the Multidisciplinary Workshop which was held on 9 March 2007
OECD announce that they are to work with the European Commission, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations, the UN Development Programme and the World Bank, to develop a new approach to measuring how societies are changing, by using high quality, reliable statistics to assess progress in a range of areas affecting citizens’ quality of life.
These would go beyond conventional economic indicators such gross domestic
product (GDP). Key indicators to assess progress would look at such factors
as health, education and the environment, as well as economic factors such
as employment, productivity and purchasing power.
Among various ideas under study, the OECD is thinking of creating an Internet
site based on Web 2.0 “wiki” technologies for the presentation
and discussion of international, national and local initiatives aimed at
developing indicators of societal progress. By making indicators accessible
to citizens all over the world through dynamic graphics and other analytical
tools, this initiative would aim to stimulate discussion based on solid
and comparable statistical information about what progress actually means.
The second OECD World Forum debated a wide variety of issues, from ageing
populations to new technology and from climate change to immigration. Many
of the papers presented are available at the Forum
website.
Using the latest official data published this spring, the overall picture
on poverty is mixed. On the positive side, child poverty has fallen from
36% in the late 1990s (significantly higher than the UK average) to 28%
(just under the UK average), though there have been no improvements since
2003/04.
Pensioner poverty is also down markedly, from 26% to 20%, especially among
single pensioners. But among adults of working age, the fall has been much
smaller with 350,000 working-age adults remaining in poverty - more than
the joint totals of children and pensioners. The proportion of disabled
working-age adults in poverty has risen, from 30% in the mid 1990s to the
current level of 33%.
Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Wales 2007
A review of databases and other statistical sources reporting ethnic group
and their potential to enhance the evidence base on health promotion - latest report in the Health ASERT Programme Wales.
Recapturing the Bevanite dream?: case study evaluation of healthy living
centres in Wales: interim report to the Office of the Chief Medical Officer,
Welsh Assembly Government: summary of progress to October 2005 - ongoing
evaluation is being conducted by a team based at Cardiff Institute of
Society, Health and Ethics, Cardiff University. The UK level evaluation
has recently been completed, with funding from the Big Lottery Fund and
national partners. The evaluation in Wales has been extended and is focusing
on achievements and legacy issues.
Evaluation of community food co-ops pilot in Wales - the evaluation
was conducted by a team based in the Cardiff Institute of Society Health
and Ethics, Cardiff University and The Social Inclusion Research Unit,
University of Wales.
Getting it right: designing adolescent-centred smoking cessation services’(Abstract) - research published in the journal Addiction on a PHHPD funded pilot
study to develop adolescent-centred smoking cessation services.
Measuring the health and health behaviours of adolescents through cross-national
survey research: recent developments in the Health Behaviour in School-aged
Children (HBSC) study (Abstract) - outlines the methods used and recent
developments in the World Health Organization (WHO)-supported study. PHHPD
represent the Assembly Government on this international study. This follows
a paper given at last summer’s Quality in Survey Statistics (QUISS)
conference held in Cardiff.
All Wales training needs analysis report by Department for Social Justice
and Regeneration - provides information on the training needs of substance
misuse specialist workers in Wales (substance misuse service managers,
service workers and commissioners), as well as those who sometimes work
with substance misuse issues. The report also makes recommendations for
workforce development in Wales.