Government Social Research
Philip Davies and Siobhan Benita have been working with colleagues in the Government Office for the West Midlands and the West Midlands' Regional Office of the Home Office on a Rapid Evidence Assessment on Gangs and Gun Violence. This is part of a drive to undertake as comprehensive a review of the existing research literature as possible in a limited period of time. A brief guide to Rapid Evidence Assessments is now available on this website. Comments from GSR members would be welcome. Philip also gave a presentation to the Strategic Management Board of the Government Office for the West Midlands on Evidence-Based Policy Making . There was some very constructive and appreciative discussion of how social research can play a role in evidence-based policy and practice, and in helping people make good strategic decisions.
Also on the agenda for Philip was a visit to the Nordic Campell Collaboration Centre in Copenhagen. The Centre is doing some excellent work on developing systematic reviews to support policy making. Details are on their website. Philip will be the keynote speaker at the Centre's national conference in Copenhagen in November 2004.
Other recent activities include:
Siobhan Benita attended the 12th Cochrane Colloquium to give the opening presentation at a special session on 'Building Bridges between Health and Social Science Research'. Siobhan spoke about the merits of 'joined-up government', what joining-up means for research and policy communities and what policy users want from their research colleagues. Phil Davies ended the special session with an exploration of the potential future links between the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations.
Rebecca Laffineur has been finding out about the new Professional Skills in Government initiative (PSG), and what it could mean for you as a government social researcher. It is clear that with Social Research as your professional skill, your career would be anchored in the Policy expert/analyst professional stream, alongside economists, statisticians, scientists and policy experts. The expectation is that before reaching PRO/Gr7, you would have acquired a variety of experience, including exposure to another professional stream and to have learnt some key business skills (e.g. financial management, risk management, marketing).
Before entry to the SCS you would be expected to have had exposure to all three streams and acquired additional business skills. Gateways to promotion will be introduced for entry to Gr7 and SCS band 1.
The competencies we are developing for a career in GSR will reflect the minimum requirements for the policy/analyst professional stream and are deliberately linked to the Senior Civil Service competencies; which have an increasing focus on delivery skills and relationship skills, as well as analytical and intellectual skills. Our plans for professional development in GSR will be shaped by the PSG initiative ensuring that we are building career paths which provide the variety of skills and experience required for a successful Civil Service career.
We will provide further information through the GSR monthly bulletin; telling you how you can give your feedback about the initiative, and about how our plans are developing. You should also hear more about the initiative and your department's response to it from your HR unit. You can access the Summary Factsheet which outlines the key issues and background to the PSG initiative and have Your Questions Answered.
John Scott Cree has posted notes from the recent HOPs' awayday to GSR website, as well as adding to the events and vacancies pages. August visits to the site rose to 4,344. Have you checked your details in the directory ? There are also some important additions to Policy Hub.
Annette King went to 5th Qualitative Research Conference in Health and Social Care at Bournemouth University to give a talk on the Quality Framework together with Jane Lewis from the National Centre of Social Research. Delegates in the session were quite open to the idea of a Framework - Annette had expected objection to the very idea of formal quality assessment in qualitative inquiry. Annette also learnt of an interesting new development in qualitative research: Look out for the 'IPA' approach. It stands for Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The paper, which seemed to be rather popular, used an 'IPA' approach in bringing together perspective on research and psychotherapy to construct extended case studies. Annette left GCSRO this month to take up the position of Research Programme Manager in the East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust. She will be taking charge of the NHS programme research on older people.
Sharmila Kaduskar left GCSRO last month to return to Department of Health. Before she left she finalised the ethical framework document which will underpin the scrutiny of government social research. Teresa Williams will be taking forward this work.
Correna Callender has been visiting departments to find out about internal communications. The work has three focuses; how GSR fits into the wider department structure; what communication systems exist within the GSR function in the department; how the GSR function 'joins up' with the wider GSR, including relations with GCSRO. Workshops have been completed in 12 of the 20 'GSR' departments to date. Look out for further news on developments in the communication strategy in future bulletins. For more details contact Correna directly.
News from across GSR
Alexy Buck, Principal Researcher (Deputy Head) at the Legal Services Research Centre of the Legal Services Commission , has been awarded a T H Marshall Fellowship in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics. This is a new Anglo-German Fellowship Programme, open to mid-career to senior level academic researchers and equally qualified social policy practitioners. One of the key aims of the T H Marshall Fellowships is to bridge traditional barriers between theory and practice in social policy and to produce research on a comparative or supranational aspect of welfare state policy. Alexy will be based at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung (WZB): a multi-disciplinary social science research centre and the largest of its kind in Europe. Alexy's research will focus on the influence of national identity and national history on social policy making, specifically in regard to education and how the concept of 'citizenship' has been taught in German schools. Comparisons will also be made to developments in Britain. She will be taking up her Fellowship from this October to April 2005.
DWP London ran two half-day workshops on the subject of Qualitative Research in Government. These workshops were follow on from a seminar previously held in Sheffield on the same themes. The aim was to share examples of a range of creative research methods that have made an impact on policy-making, and consider how they might be used within DWP. The subjects covered included: q uality in qualitative research , d iscourse analysis and lifecourse techniques . Six speakers presented over the two half-days, from both external agencies and from within DWP. For more information on these events please contact Jennifer Watson (jennifer.watson@dwp.gsi.gov.uk) .
DWP is also planning a Poster Conference for 25 November at the University of Nottingham . The aim of this is to facilitate networking and knowledge sharing amongst the Social Research community, whilst promoting Social Research amongst analysts and other colleagues across DWP. At this event every team with a social researcher will be represented and each team will present a team poster, giving an overview of their team's purpose and research activities. The event is planned to encourage an increase in dialogue and sharing of ideas between all researchers whilst ensuring a greater understanding of the way in which all of our work links together. The aim is that the event will have a tangible outcome, with team posters being linked to team details on a large networking map on the intranet which the wider analytical community and policy customers will be able to access. This will provide a user-friendly overview of our social research community by illustrating each team's position and how they link to other research teams and analysts within DWP. It is anticipated that as users of the site browse over different team names a pop-up sentence will appear at the bottom of the screen showing full team name and briefly state its overall purpose. If the user wishes to know more they can click on the team to open a link to the team poster in PDF format. Unfortunately numbers for attending this event are limited and it is open to invitation only. However, if you have any queries please contact Fraser Macleod ( F raser.Macleod@dwp.gsi.gov)
The Office for National Statistics has launched a website, Stats4Schools, to support the teaching of statistics across the national curriculum. It provides teachers and pupils with a free on-line resource offering up to date statistics linked to lesson plans and worksheets that deal with interesting themes.