Government Social Research
Anita Morrison
First thing a phone call to the hotel in Edinburgh confirmed arrangements for our Research Agenda Launch Event next month - arrangements for speakers and workshops were confirmed and a visit planned for the week before to finalise details. Now up to 65 attendees - including researchers, policy makers and practitioners.
Then straight to a meeting with the research team (who are a partnership of two Scottish universities) evaluating new legislation passed by the Parliament in 2001 - some of the findings are controversial and have attracted comments from a range of stakeholders. Reached a consensus on most points - the revised version of the report should be available in the next 10 days. Will be in time for the Justice Committee 1 to consider as planned next month. Confirmed these arrangements with the Committee Clerk at the Parliament.
Quick chat with some colleagues over lunch. Picked up and responded to emails from Press Justice and the Social Research admin team and received 4 further acceptances for our launch event. Spent an hour with one of my team members looking at a paper we've been drafting drawing together evidence on a range of family policy issues for colleagues in the Executive. We agreed on some restructuring and some further analysis of existing data to complete over the next few days. Then had a discussion with our student who is with our team for a 4 week placement - she is analysing census data on household composition and marriage over the last 50 years. We also arranged her leaving lunch for next week. A couple of quick phone calls before heading off to finalise arrangements for the publication of our Research Agenda - we now have Ministerial clearance and a publication date has been fixed.