Tag Archives: ENGLAND

Devolving health and social care in England: an opportunity to transform how we approach health and care?

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In recent years, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has increasingly encouraged the transfer of powers over health and social care in England away from central government and towards city regions. These bodies, DHSC argues, are uniquely placed to understand the challenges faced by their local populations, the capacities and expertise of their local NHS and to develop plans for the future. This should enable them to approach health at a local level, promoting increased delivery of care in the community, and a greater integration between health and care services.

Putting local places at the centre of “Build back better”

In August 2020 the Health Devolution Commission launched its final report, Building back health and prosperity. Among other themes, like taking a “health in all policies approach”, the report found that devolving accountability and power to a more local level creates the potential to understand communities and places better, and to meet their needs.

The NHS Long Term Plan has also outlined a new direction for the NHS based on the principle of collaboration rather than competition, and the introduction of new structures such as Integrated Care Systems, Integrated Care Providers and Primary Care Networks. These partnerships bring health and social care commissioners together to plan and deliver integrated and person-centred care.

In the context of “building back better”, awareness of how our external experiences and contexts impact our health and wellbeing (for example the impact of poverty, deprivation, housing, and unemployment) is increasingly important.

Beyond the immediate recovery from the pandemic, health devolution could be one way of opening up the possibility of integrating not just disparate services within the NHS – or even NHS and social care services in a locality – but bringing together in a combined strategy and structure all of the services, systems and partners in a community that have an impact upon the health of a local population, and the care services to better meet their health needs.

“It doesn’t have to be a battle”- partnerships and balance are the key to effective devolution

The move away from centralised processes and organisations towards more local ones can sometimes be portrayed as a rejection or an attempt to “break free” from central government. However, practitioners have been increasingly stressing that devolution does not mean complete independence, and that while improved local decision making will improve outcomes for local people, that does not mean that the need for some centralised decision making is completely removed.

On the contrary, some decisions should and will be taken at a national level, but the ability to distribute power, decision making and accountability to a local level will have significant positive impacts for improving “citizen voice”, transparency and co-production in decision making.

This is where the Health Devolution Commission argues that balance, communication, and partnership between the local and national infrastructure needs to be aligned so that devolution can be successful and sustainable. Integrated planning and management of long-term health care strategies is important, as is the ability to bring citizens and local decision makers into discussions about national health policy.

The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector, including patient voice and carers organisations, also plays an important role in linking together services and communities. As well as partnering to deliver services, these organisations also often offer vital bridges between statutory systems and those communities which can often be excluded from engagement with services or who can find it harder to access them. The commission also emphasised the importance of bringing these bodies into the conversation on devolution going forwards as they will be invaluable partners in the process.

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DevoManc providing the blueprint?

In 2016, as part of a pilot, control of the health and social care budget for Greater Manchester was transferred to a partnership team in the area comprising local authorities, clinical commissioning groups, NHS foundation trusts and NHS England.

The combined authority identified that the health of its population was one of the key obstacles to its economic growth. By relating the concept of regional economic prosperity with health, they began to see health in a completely different way – as part of a wider plan and an investment for growth, not a burden.

“It’s better to have decisions made locally, because local people understand what local problems are and what Greater Manchester needs. We need to work together.”

Lord Peter Smith, Chair of Greater Manchester Health and Care Board

The Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership are working in partnership with other sectors including education and housing to support everything from good eating habits and exercise to education and everyone’s ability to earn a decent living. The partnership is taking action to give children the start they need, support independence in old age, tackle illness earlier on and even prevent it altogether by improving the lifestyles of local people.

Other areas of England are also currently undertaking their own health devolution journeys, including London, West Yorkshire and Harrogate, as well as some other combined authority areas. However, one of the big challenges is that currently, while we can learn from the experiences of those already on their devolution journey, there is no common, consistent or comprehensive understanding of what good heath devolution looks like, full evaluations of the benefits it brings or overarching strategies on how it should be developed.

This is something that will need to be addressed if health devolution is to be successfully rolled out across England.

Final thoughts

Devolution of health to a more local level provides an opportunity to tackle the big public health challenges of our time at source, and to create a better, more joined up community health ecosystem. It also provides the chance to share and collaborate, learning from best practice and delivering improved health and social care services at a regional and national level.

It has been suggested that the coronavirus pandemic, while traumatic in more ways than one for the NHS and its staff, may provide the re-setting point needed to implement some of the changes proposed in relation to greater health devolution. Proponents of this view argue that improved funding to support effective and high quality care, improved integration between health and social care, and greater positioning of health and assessment of the impact of decisions on health across all policy areas, should be among the top priorities as the country looks to recover from the pandemic.

As the Health Devolution Commission underlines:

The pandemic has shown we cannot go back to the way things were. We need a ‘new normal’ and we believe that comprehensive health devolution is the only viable solution to the challenges the country now faces.”

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Further education: happy-ever-after for the Cinderella sector?

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“It has, I believe, been an old complaint among many concerned with the technical side of education that that part of education has been the Cinderella. Well, the Government is determined that even if there was any truth in that in the past, there shall be none in the future.”

That forthright pledge came, not from a politician in our own times, but from the president of the board of education in 1935. Almost a century later, further education (FE) is still struggling to break away from its position as an overlooked and under-resourced Cinderella sector.

The importance of FE

FE matters in many ways to many people. Through FE, individuals can get a second chance to obtain qualifications, equip themselves for higher education, and improve their employability or chances of promotion, as well as enjoying countless health and wellbeing benefits.  Employers look to FE  to provide a workforce with the skills they need. So many of the services we rely on today depend on people who learned their skills in FE colleges, from car mechanics to care workers, hairdressers to housing managers. Not incidentally, the wider economy benefits from the improved productivity, increased tax-take and knowledge transfer that FE delivers. In spite of all these benefits, FE colleges attract less attention and funding than schools or universities, and their impact is not so widely recognised.

The Cinderella factors

In 2018, researchers from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education identified six key issues affecting FE policy in England:

  • English FE is not defined clearly and stably;
  • the strength and continuity of FE colleges have been undermined by multiple and changing funding sources and funders, frequent government reviews and frequent substantial policy changes;
  • increasing numbers of college lecturers are employed on zero hours contracts;
  • mergers and closures have undermined colleges’ community and employment functions;
  • competition among the multiplicity of private bodies awarding FE qualifications is leading them to make their qualifications easier to attain;
  • cuts in FE funding have greatly weakened colleges, leaving them under-resourced.

The hardest-hit service

As the Ontario study noted, funding is a key factor in the precarious position of FE in the UK, something echoed by further research. An independent review of post-18 education, led by Philip Augar, reported that in 2018 English universities received £8bn in government funding to support 1.2m undergraduates, while just £2.3bn was allocated for the 2.2m full and part-time students aged over 18 in further education.

A further report, published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies  found that over the last decade further education and skills spending for young people and adults received the largest cuts across all areas of education spending.

The House of Commons Education Committee has also identified FE as the hardest hit part of the education sector:

“Participation in full time further education has more than doubled since the 1980s, yet post-16 budgets have seen the most significant pressures of all education stages. Per student funding fell by 16% in real terms between 2010–11 and 2018–19 – twice as much as the 8% school funding fall over a similar period.”

Witnesses contributing to the Committee’s investigation were in no doubt that FE has been hit harder than other parts of the education sector because it doesn’t have the ear of politicians in the way that schools and universities do. As one contributor put it:

“…there are more votes in schools than colleges.”

Remedies and recommendations

The Augar review observed that there is a powerful case for change in the FE sector, and made a number of recommendations to improve the quality, capability and capacity of England’s FE college network, including:

  • a national network of colleges should be established, with a dedicated capital investment, and the integration of small, local colleges into groups;
  • full funding should be provided for all students participating in study for levels 2 and 3 to remove barriers to social mobility and productivity;
  • the reduction in the core funding rate for 18 year-olds should be reversed;
  • Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding rules should be simplified, and government should commit to providing an indicative adult education budget;
  • the government should invest in the FE workforce as a priority;
  • FE colleges should have a protected title, as universities are entitled to.

The Augar recommendation that £3bn should flow to colleges, along with a one-off £1bn capital funding boost for the national network underlines the need for government to take further education seriously. As things stand, FE is still awaiting a definitive government response.

FE in the rest of the UK

Scotland
In Scotland, where FE colleges provide around 71 million hours of learning to over 242,00 students each year, financial pressures are increasing. A 2019 Audit Scotland report noted that Scottish colleges are operating within an increasingly tight financial environment. It reported that 12 colleges were forecasting recurring financial deficits by 2022-23. The report suggested that there is scope for the Scottish Funding Council to work with individual colleges and their boards to improve financial planning and to achieve greater transparency in the sector’s financial position. More recently, research by the principals of Scotland’s two largest colleges reported that FE boosts Scotland’s GDP by £3.5bn a year.

Wales
The 2016 Hazelkorn review made recommendations for post-compulsory education in Wales, including a new Tertiary Education Authority to distribute funding to universities and colleges, and to shape the vision of the post-compulsory sector. The review also recommended that education policy and institutions should be more focused on Wales’ social and economic goals. The Welsh Government has accepted the recommendations.

Northern Ireland
Six regional colleges, operating across 40 campuses, are the main providers of technical and vocational education in Northern Ireland. In 2016, the Northern Ireland Executive reviewed FE, resulting in a strategy with nine themes covering areas such as economic development; social inclusion and delivery. It includes a commitment to, in partnership with the colleges, review the funding model to ensure that it supports and incentivises colleges to deliver the strategy. With the resumption of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland, the hope is that the government can work with the FE sector to meet the challenges of funding and the needs of the economy.

Cinderella no more?

Further education is the backbone of the UK’s efforts to meet the country’s growing skills gap, and may hold the key to improving productivity and social mobility. But OECD figures show just 37% of men and 34% of women participate in further education (compared to averages of 49% and 44% respectively across other industrialised countries). Clearly, more needs to be done to help FE level up.

Earlier this month, in his first Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the Conservative Party’s election manifesto commitments for FE, including £1.8bn for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to upgrade college buildings. There are also high hopes that more money will be delivered to FE in the autumn spending review.

The FE sector has welcomed the change in approach. Following the Budget speech, the Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said: “Today showed a clear shift in attitude towards technical and vocational education, after a decade of neglect.”

It might still be too soon to forecast a happy ending for the Cinderella sector, but the signs are that FE is coming in from the cold.

Further reading from The Knowledge Exchange blog

“The ‘frustrated’ housing aspirations of generation rent”

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A key change in the UK’s housing market over the past twenty years has been the growth of the private rented sector (PRS), with more living in the sector than ever before. This growth has led to the view that there is now a ‘generation rent’ who are priced out of home ownership and stranded in insecure short-term lets for prolonged periods of their lives – fuelling concerns about intergenerational inequality.

At a recent seminar, hosted by the Public Services and Governance research group at the University of Stirling, Dr Kim McKee, a co-investigator for The UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Research (CaCHE), presented the key findings from her research on ‘generation rent’ and precarity in the contemporary housing market.

Who are ‘generation rent’?

The UK 2011 Census highlighted that 40% of private renters were young people under the age of 35. With a challenging labour market, rising student debt and welfare reforms, home ownership and social housing is increasingly out of reach for these young people, who end up stuck private renting for much longer than the previous generation.

It was noted by Dr McKee that there is a clear age dimension to the recent shifts in housing tenure, but that the ‘generation rent’ label is more complex than portrayed. Income and family support were emphasised as just as critical in the understanding of young people’s experiences and future plans, as was geography.

Indeed, other research has highlighted that income and family background have a huge impact on young people’s housing market experiences. The Resolution Foundation’s recent report highlights that young people from wealthier families are more likely to become homeowners, suggesting that there are also intra-generational inequalities.

Dr McKee’s study focused on the inequalities facing these young people through qualitative research with 16 young people aged 35 and under living in the PRS in Scotland or England. Those on low incomes were explicitly targeted with the aim of giving them a voice, which was considered to be largely absent in previous research.

Aspirations vs expectations

There was a long-term aspiration for home ownership among the majority of participants, with a smaller number aspiring to social housing. But private renting was seen as the only short-term option as a host of challenges thwart them from realising their ambitions:

  • mortgage finance
  • family support
  • labour markets
  • student debt
  • welfare reform

The fact that housing tenure was highlighted by respondents rather than housing type or location, as previous research has highlighted, suggests there is a general dissatisfaction with living in the PRS. Indeed, it was noted that the PRS was discussed largely negatively, perceived as the ‘tenure of last resort’.

Despite the continued aspirations for home ownership, there was a marked difference between aspirations and expectations. There was a levelling down of expectations to own and a gap emerging between what the young people aspired to as their ideal and what they expected to achieve. A small minority even remarked that a more realistic goal may in fact be improvements in the PRS. The study showed that such expectations were due, mainly, to low earnings and insecure employment, combined with a lack of family financial support.

While the short-term nature of private renting makes it a very flexible rental option, it also makes it insecure and precarious, creating barriers for tenants who want to settle into a home and community. This is particularly worrying for families with children, who can be greatly affected by the upheaval of having to regularly move.

Emotional impacts

The study was particularly interested in the more intangible and emotional impacts on ‘generation rent’ and how the frustrations in realising their aspirations impacted negatively on their wellbeing.

It was stressed that issues in the PRS are having serious negative impacts on the wellbeing of young people – insecure, expensive and poor quality housing are contributing to depression, stress and anxiety. Moreover, for those on the lowest incomes, such issues are even contributing to homelessness.

Not only is mental wellbeing affected but their physical health has also been impacted by poor quality housing. Problems with rodents, damp and mould, broken white goods and poor quality accommodation in general were all reported by participants.

The experiences of the young people in the study were described as a “sad reflection of housing in the UK today” and raises questions over whether the PRS can really meet the needs of low income groups in particular.

Geography matters 

Another key finding was that where people live really matters, not only because of the spatial nature of housing and labour markets, but also as tenancy rights and regulations vary across the UK.

Recent reforms in Scotland have provided tenants with greater security of tenure and more predictable rent increases. England was highlighted as lagging behind the rest of the UK in terms of regulation and tenants’ rights as it lacks any national landlord registration scheme. Letting agent fees in England were also highlighted as a real issue in relation to affordability.

It was suggested that the rest of the UK could learn much from the Scottish experience, although there is a need to go further, particularly in relation to affordability.

Way forward

A key message from the study was that security of tenure really matters for those living in the PRS but reform of the housing system can only go so far. Participants identified more affordable housing, more protection for renters and income inequalities as areas where the government could intervene to improve things.

Based on the findings, six key policy recommendations were made:

  • ensure security of tenure;
  • take action on rents;
  • provide better education for tenants on their rights, and indeed for landlords;
  • provide more affordable housing; and
  • ensure greater understanding of intra-generational inequalities.

If the wider inequalities within society are also addressed, perhaps the PRS could become an aspiration rather than the ‘tenure of last resort’.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may also be interested in our previous posts on build to rent and meeting demand and improving data in the private rented sector.

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Build to rent: opening up opportunities for supply in the private rented sector

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Anyone with any experience of the private rented sector (PRS) will tell you that it is a complex entity. Disjointed, difficult to regulate and control, but for many, an essential part of the housing market.

Despite the many criticisms often levelled at the private rented sector, demand is high – so high that in many areas it is outstripping supply. If you consider that the market in Scotland alone has grown by over a third since 1999 that will give you an idea of the scale of growth across the whole of the UK.

It has been suggested that this rise in demand for PRS properties has been driven in part by falling numbers of accessible social housing, and increasing numbers of people forced to rent in the private sector as they are unable to afford a deposit for a mortgage. The irony in many instances is that this group – largely segmented in customer profiles as “young professionals”, usually graduates with a reasonable wage – would probably be able to afford repayments on a mortgage but whether for the convenience and flexibility of renting, or lack of ability to save for a deposit (which in many areas of the UK are painfully high) they live in private rent housing.

The growth in the build-to-rent market

One of the emerging markets within the PRS, which has been popular for a few years now in cities in the USA, is the build to rent market and it is being heralded as (part of) the solution to the supply-demand challenge in the UK’s PRS.

Build to rent in principle involves an investor – usually a large multinational like Legal and General or Shell – putting up the money to build a complex, usually of self-contained studio, one or two-bedroom flats (although increasingly the model is being applied to suburban “family” homes too). There is usually also a communal space, where people living in the complex can come to meet one another, or perhaps work if they are able to work flexibly from home. There is also usually a shared kitchen area, as well as facilities like gyms, and even cinemas. These commercial landlords provide attrractive, and based on current models, high-end accommodation which often most suits the needs of the “young professional” market.

A solution to a social as well as a housing conundrum

Those who support the build to rent model within the PRS highlight that it has wider benefits than simply providing more accommodation in an increasingly stretched market. They also stress the benefits of the social aspect it can provide to residents, as well as facilities which enable flexible working and spaces which promote healthy living such as onsite gyms.

However, others criticise the projects on a number of fronts. Some are concerned that the projects could encourage gentrification of an area. With rents often being as much as a small mortgage, they are, critics argue, aimed at a market who are choosing to rent, either while they save for a house, or because the flexibility of renting suits their lifestyle, allowing them to be closer to jobs for example. They stress that those who are already being exploited by the PRS will see little to no benefit from these developments, which could potentially price them out of existing areas.

Supporters counter this by saying that these developments are aimed at a specific area of the market, and that actually introducing more mid-market renting accommodation may free up cheaper accommodation for lower income renters. Critics also question the benefit to the wider housing market, suggesting that while it looks good on the surface, in practice, build to rent is not going to solve the housing crisis.

How do we make it appealing to local authorities?

In Scotland, certainly, build to rent is in its infancy, with no specific build to rent projects in operation currently, although there are a number of planning applications in process, and some retrofitted buildings, previously derelict and remodelled to fit the build to rent spec. Meanwhile, there are a number of projects in the pipeline in England, where the model has already taken off in a number of locations, including London and Manchester.

However, it appears that in many instances, local authorities are cautious, and even at times reluctant to support build to rent projects, in part because of uncertainty about the schemes. In addition, a lack of support for the model, particularly among traditional planners is making them reluctant to bring build to rent projects forward. It is up to those within the sector to persuade sceptical local authorities that build to rent can work in a number of different settings, and does not just suit a young professional market in an inner city (although that is its current demographic target).

The future of build to rent

The housing sector is reliant on all areas of it functioning properly, and this includes the private rented sector. While build to rent is not being proclaimed as a panacea for the housing crisis in the UK, it can for many be a useful option within the PRS. How it will be utilised, and the potential impact on the PRS in the UK remains to be seen.

If you are interested in this topic, you may also be interested in the following blog posts:

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Public transport: lessons from our Nordic neighbours

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Public transport is a vital element in the lives of many people. Commuters rely on bus, train, tram and metro services to get them to and from work. Public transport is also crucial for those without cars who need to access education, training, health and social care services.

The state of UK public transport

Recent research by the Urban Transport Group (UTG) has reported important trends in public transport England. Among the findings:

  • Buses remain the most used form of public transport, but service levels and usage have been in decline.
  • There has been rapid growth in rail passenger numbers over the last decade.
  • Patronage on Light Rail systems in England has seen an increase of 44% since 2007/08.

Elsewhere in the UK, there’s a mixed picture on the state of public transport:

  • New legislation introduced by the Scottish Government aims to halt the decline in bus use in Scotland, where passenger numbers fell by 10% over five years. Meanwhile, the rail regulator has demanded improvements to the punctuality of trains in Scotland.
  • Wales has seen a steady decline in bus usage in recent years, although over the same period passenger numbers on trains have increased.
  • Translink, which provides public transport in Northern Ireland has reported that trips by fare-paying passengers increased for the second year in a row, with rail passenger numbers reaching their highest level in 50 years.

Overall, rail passenger numbers in the UK are rising, although the recent disruption to services in the south east and the north of England following timetable changes underlined ongoing dissatisfaction with the standards of service from rail companies. Meanwhile, Britain’s bus network continues to shrink, especially on local routes.

Lessons from Scandinavia

When it comes to public transport, it’s often enlightening to look at how other countries manage. A recent UTG report explored how transport authorities in Sweden, Denmark and Norway are using devolved powers to transform public transport for the better. The report, written by Professor Tom Rye, from the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University, considered various aspects of public transport, including service levels, fares, technological innovations, environmental impact and franchising.

Service levels

The report found that, in comparison with the equivalent city regions in the UK (outside of London), service levels in the Nordic countries are higher, particularly during off-peak times. In rural and low-density suburban areas, a higher level of service is provided since there is an element of cross-subsidy between revenue-generating and loss-making routes. By contrast, in the UK bus deregulation does not allow for comparable levels of cross-subsidy.

Fares

In Scandinavia, as in many other parts of continental Europe, fares are zonal and multi-modal. Passengers can travel on the same ticket by rail, bus, light rail, and in some cities on urban ferries. Journeys are paid for on a stored value or season ticket smartcard. The research found that, in comparison to incomes, fares for frequent users in Scandinavian cities are similar to those in the UK, but season tickets often cover wider geographical areas.

Technological innovations

The report provides examples of significant innovation on vehicle technologies, including smart ticketing. In Norway fares are increasingly supplied as mobile tickets.

Environmental impact

The research found that the Scandinavian countries have ambitious plans for public transport’s role in reducing carbon and toxic emissions. These include low or zero emission bus fleets and modal shifts from other transport modes. Copenhagen’s metro and suburban rail services are a key part of the city’s plan to be the first in the world to be CO2 free by 2025. There will be no diesel-powered buses in Oslo by 2020, and in Sweden Skåne’s bus fleet will run on fossil-free fuel by the same year.

Franchising

Public transport strategies in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are aligned with wider national and sub-national goals for economic development, land use planning and social cohesion. Levels of revenue support for bus services underpin a high quality of service, and levels of public transport use are high (although in Denmark, heavy investment in cycling infrastructure means public transport usage is relatively low).

One of the key features of public transport in Scandinavia is that virtually all bus services have been franchised. Metro and tram services are also provided either through franchising or by the incumbent municipal operator.The report notes that the main impact of franchising of bus services in all three countries has been to reduce costs and increase quality. The authors note that:

“…franchising in these countries and regions gives public sector Passenger Transport Authorities the direct ability to improve aspects of service because they specify and purchase that service from private sector operators. Thus, if they have the resources and are willing to pay for improvements, these can be delivered rapidly, to deliver on policy ambitions.” 

The Scandinavian way

Even as local, devolved and national governments are trying to encourage greater use of public transport, the evidence suggests that in a significant number of British cities – including Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield, the number of people travelling by public transport is falling.

The UTG report suggests that the Nordic model provides a road map for improvement in the way that UK transport service providers currently deliver urban public transport:

“Scandinavian countries have taken this approach because there is a political and public consensus that public transport is a public service. A public service that has a key role to play in tackling road congestion, reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution. A public service that also spreads the benefits of economic growth and promotes social cohesion through ensuring better connectivity within and between communities – including linking peripheral areas with the main towns and cities that are driving the wider economy.”

Read more of our public transport blog posts:

The private rented sector: meeting demand and improving data

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The private rented sector (PRS) has grown recently, to become a more than significant part of the housing market in the UK. A shortfall in social housing availability, and extortionate deposit costs for first time buyers has meant that demand in the private sector has grown exponentially since the 1990s, the sector now taking in clients from across the demographic spectrum.

But research has shown the demand for private rent housing is not just about finance. Increasingly, many young professionals actively choose to live in the private rented sector because they like the flexibility and locational benefits of private rents. Renting privately can mean they are able to move freely for jobs without being constrained by a mortgage, and live in city centre locations, with short commutes and close proximity to amenities like shops, restaurants, gyms and cinemas.

Despite the growing “young professional” market, the sector also (in some areas) has something of an image problem. Characterised by rogue landlords charging extortionate rents for poor quality homes, with the ability to remove tenants without reason or much notice. This negative aspect, which centres on the issue of tenant rights and security within the private sector, is something which has been discussed widely at a number of events recently, for example, at the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) event we attended in Glasgow last month. It is also something which last year the Scottish Government legislated to try and mitigate.

Ensuring quality in a place people can call home

One of the other major issues that is often highlighted with PRS is the need for a minimum quality standard, bringing private lets into line with the minimum standards (supposedly) adhered to in social housing. The legislation and policing of this element of the PRS is proving more complicated to navigate, although it is something which is being discussed within the Scottish Government.

There is also the growing issue of the short-term rented sector. You cannot have failed to notice, whether you work in housing or not, the rise of sites like AirBnB and HomeAway which allow individuals to list entire properties or spare rooms out on a short-term basis. Concerns as to the growth of this market have been raised the world over. The major issues are the impact on permanent residents, who can find having new neighbours each week disconcerting, and on the local housing market more generally, as the rise of short term lets then reduces the pool available for longer term private lets. Cities like Barcelona are, however, beginning to look at how regulation and use of permits can address the negative impacts, and are being watched the world over to see if their actions will work.

How can we meet demand?

It is often said that housing is a complex flux of different sub-sectors, and that, more often than not, one cannot function effectively without the other. The PRS, the housing market and social housing are all reliant on each other to help control demand and prices and ensure that everyone, regardless of circumstance, has somewhere that they can call home.

One of the major issues with meeting demand is space and land to build; another is funding and another is understanding exactly who needs homes, and what type of homes they need. In many cases people view the private rented sector as being a stop gap for those not able to get social housing, and not able to afford a deposit for a mortgage. Although in many instances they may be right, the demographic of those renting privately now is changing, and becoming more and more varied year on year, with many young professionals and families with children now renting privately.

Understanding these trends will be key to meeting demand. In order to do this the data on housing, particularly within the private rented sector needs to improve. Research from the Urban Big Data Centre and CaCHE found that data is lacking, and that we need to improve it if we are to improve the PRS more generally.

A recent evaluation by the Welsh Government of Rent Smart Wales found that Rent Smart Wales and its database of registered landlords has provided good quality information and guidance to local authorities and landlords, as well as driving up standards within the PRS in Wales. Learning from how data collected on the Rent Smart Wales database can be maximised to provide an accessible source of information on the PRS in Wales is very important going forward, and this is something we are seeing increasingly across the sector – the desire for more data, to help those within the sector make better decisions.

What next?

A report released by LSE in June 2018 found that while the PRS has grown significantly, projections suggest that it will start to level out, and reach a state of stasis, or even decline in the coming years. Other reports have contradicted this, however, stating that unless there is an intervention or significant change in house prices, more people than ever will be forced to live within the PRS.

What does seem to be agreed upon is that better data and understanding of the sector and how to manage it is necessary and that ultimately, standards will improve across the board, with or without government intervention, but the way we view private rented sector accommodation will also change.

PRS properties will not only be buy-to-let houses, converted into HMOs, or tiny bedsits where 5 people share 2 rooms. Instead the market for sectors like build-to-rent are growing, and changing the expectations of the new generation of renters about what to expect from PRS accommodation.

In the future the ambition is for high quality, stability and housing which is suitable for a range of different tenants and their needs from young professionals and families with children, right through to older people living in retirement villages managed by a corporate landlord. It is hoped this will help stabilise rents and improve standards across the board, creating affordable places that people can plan to live in long term, with security and quality at their heart.

If you are interested in this topic, you may also be interested in the following blog posts:

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Opt-in, Opt-out? A new system for organ donation in Scotland

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Guest blog by Findlay Smith

Credit: Soeren Stache / DPA/Press Association Images

The Scottish Government is in the process of bringing forward legislation to introduce a ‘soft opt-out’ scheme for organ donation. Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell stated that the move will be one step of many in a “long term culture change” regarding organ donation.

A ‘soft opt-out’ scheme operates on the assumption that lack of objection on an individual’s part can be considered ‘deemed consent’.

This means that people in Scotland will have a choice to:

  • actively opt in – being placed on the organ donor register; or
  • do nothing – which will now be treated as ‘deemed consent’; or
  • actively opt out – being removed from the donor register

 Current situation in Scotland

According to the British Medical Association, as of 6 March 2017 there were 530 people in Scotland waiting for an organ transplant, with more than 1 in 10 dying before receiving a transplant.

Scotland currently operates an ‘opt-in’ system – to be a donor, you must actively register with the donor card scheme.

Although support for organ donation is high among the Scottish public, and there are indications of support for deemed consent, less than half of Scotland’s population are registered organ donors, with 45% registered.

Aimed at increasing the rates of organ and tissue donation, a public consultation was held by the Scottish Government between December 2016 and March 2017. The results indicated that 82% of respondents supported the principle of a ‘soft opt-out’ system.

Comparison with Wales

One example cited by the Scottish Government of a successful ‘soft opt-out’ policy is in Wales. In 2015, following the passing of the Human Transplantation (Wales) Act in 2013, Wales became the first country in the United Kingdom to introduce deemed consent for organ donation.

Due to these changes being implemented very recently, it is too early to accurately assess the impact of deemed consent in Wales, as it can take several years for an observable change in donation rates.

However, despite the absence of concrete figures, there are some promising signs. The British Medical Association reported in December 2016 that 39 organs had been transplanted in Wales as a direct result of the change in laws.

The Spanish model

Looking elsewhere in Europe, Spain has the highest rate of organ donation in the world, at a reported 40 donors per million people in 2015.

Whilst they have a nominally similar system to Wales, in practice they operate in a different manner. Although Spain introduced an ‘opt-out’ system in 1979, the system itself is considered ‘insignificant’ when looking to explain their world leading donation rate, as in the decade following the change in legislation there was no substantial increase in organ donation. This may be due in part to the ‘opt-out’ process rarely being applied in practice, as family members always have a final veto.

Crucially, in addition to the change in system, Spain has also drastically improved the infrastructure used to identify and recruit potential donors. In 1989 the National Transplant Organisation (ONT) was established, and Transplant Co-ordinators were placed inside every hospital.

The role of the Transplant Co-ordinator is to identify potential organ donors as early as possible. What makes the Spanish model innovative (it has since been emulated elsewhere in Europe), is the widening of the pool of potential donors. Rather than focusing on people in intensive care, potential donors are also identified in accident and emergency rooms and hospital wards.

The role of family members in this process is also key. The early identification of potential donors allows a strong relationship to be built with family members. As they have the final say, getting them on board early can make a significant difference. The Scottish Government seems to be aware of this, having conducted a fact-finding mission to Madrid in 2015, consulting ONT Director Rafael Matesanz.

Final thoughts

The examples highlighted suggest that if the introduction of ‘soft opt-out’ legislation is to be successful, it may not solely be the result of the legislation on its own. Improvements in infrastructure, organisation, and dialogue with families of potential donors will also be crucial. Transitioning towards this change in practice will require a change in culture in the NHS around organ donation.

These steps taken in Scotland, which follow the lead of Wales and draw from the Spanish model, are also now being considered in England. Assisted by a lengthy campaign from the Daily Mirror, Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson’s Organ Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 19 July 2017 and is due for debate on 23 February 2018.

Findlay Smith is currently in his final semester of study of the MPP Public Policy Programme at the University of Stirling. Findlay has recently completed a voluntary two week work experience placement with the Knowledge Exchange team in Glasgow.

What’s happening in the English education system and how does it compare to Singapore’s system?

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by Stacey Dingwall

At the end of last year, we looked at the state of the Scottish education system following the publication of some disappointing Pisa results for the country. In this blog, we focus on some of the issues recently highlighted within the English education system, and how the system compares to that of Singapore – a system that is frequently identified as a model for other countries.

Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment)

Although there was no significant change in England’s absolute score in the 2015 OECD survey of maths, science and reading, or in the country’s performance relative to other countries, England’s rankings did not experience the same decline seen in Scotland and Wales. While Scotland’s scores across all three areas were the lowest they had recorded in any other Pisa survey, pupils in England performed slightly above the OECD average in reading for the first time.

After a similar stagnation in scores were achieved in the previous Pisa survey, the Minister of Schools for England, Nick Gibb, promised reforms and funding in order to ensure that the country was able to better compete with the top performing countries. The 2015 results show that East Asian countries including Singapore continue to dominate the rankings, and are continuing to make advances.

Teaching

The success of Singapore’s education system has been attributed to its investment in its teachers. All of the country’s teachers are trained at its National Institute of Education and are selected from the top 5% of graduates. Teachers are required to commit to the profession for at least three years and are mentored by ‘master teachers’ at the start of their careers.

As we highlighted on the blog recently, the House of Commons Education Committee raised concerns about teacher training and recruitment in England in the report of their inquiry. The evidence the Committee received suggested that the government is failing to take “adequate” action to tackle what is described as “significant” teacher shortages in England. The report highlights data that more than 10% of teachers leave the profession after a year.

Teacher workload was also highlighted as a significant issue, and the Education Policy Institute gave evidence to the Committee that 60% of respondents to a survey they carried out identified it as a “key barrier” to accessing continuing professional development. EPI analysis also found that teachers in England average four days of CPD per year, compared to 12 in Singapore. Teacher CPD was identified as important for not only professionalism during the inquiry, but also for pupil outcomes.

The schools landscape

The quality of the teaching workforce in England is not the only area in which concerns have been raised over the impact on pupils. The education system in England is a complex one, and has become even more so in recent years with academies, free schools and the reintroduction of grammar schools. Government policy has not been consistent: the Education Bill and the academisation of all schools in England were both abandoned shortly after their announcement.

Last week’s Budget included the announcement of a one-off payment of £320m for 140 new free schools to be created, in addition to the 500 already pledged before 2020. However, there’s still no evidence that significant improvements at the primary level are associated with academy status, and differences at GCSE level between converter academies and other similar maintained schools are not statistically significant. At the end of last year, the EPI found that grammar school pupils’ higher GCSE attainment is not actually a result of better grammar school performance, but can actually be attributed to the high prior attainment and demographic of pupils at selective schools.

The EPI concluded that grammar schools are more likely to widen the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. It was further reported earlier this month by the Sutton Trust that a policy of ‘social selection’ is being operated in admissions to the best performing schools.

Research from the NFER has indicated that parents are confused about academies, and the different types that exist. A preference for schools to be accountable to local education authorities was also indicated, which conflicts with the government’s focus on expanding academies/free schools.

Singapore operates a centralised schools system, which is integrated and characterised by a prescribed national curriculum. English academies are not required to follow the national curriculum.

Funding for schools

Despite the Budget announcement, recent news in the education world has been dominated by claims from schools that they are underfunded. As we noted in a blog from last year, when the government announced its plans for total academisation, cuts of £600m to the Education Services Grant awarded to local authorities were also planned. Even though the policy has been abandoned, the cuts have not been reversed.

Analysis for the National Union of Teachers (NUT) found that under the government’s new ‘fair funding’ formula, 98% of schools would see cuts by 2020. Responding to the consultation on the formula, representatives from over a dozen Conservative-led councils said that they were “extremely concerned” over what they see as inadequate levels of funding.

At last week’s Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) conference, headteachers told education secretary Justine Greening that current funding levels have resulted in them having to cut some subjects and support services, and increase class sizes. The day before the conference, the heads of over 1,000 schools in England wrote to parents and MPs to report the same issues.

The government insists that funding for schools is higher than ever before, at £40bn for 2016-17 and rising to £42bn in 2019-20 to take account of rising pupil numbers. However, Labour argue that as the budget does not provide for funding per pupil to increase in line with inflation, it actually represents a real-terms reduction in the funds spent for every pupil. In December, the National Audit Office published a report which said that as the government was only offering flat cash funding per pupil over the next five years, “Schools have not experienced this level of reduction in spending power since the mid-1990s”.

The latest data from the World Bank indicates that Singapore allocated a lower percentage of its GDP in 2012 than the UK: 3.3% vs 5.6%.

The future?

In an article published just before the Budget, Theresa May published an article which spoke of her government’s ambition to “make Britain the world’s greatest meritocracy”. Meritocracy is a key policy of the Singapore education system, and is identified as one of the main reasons for the system’s success. With evidence continuing to point towards disadvantaged pupils being denied the opportunities of their peers, and schools declaring that they don’t have enough funding to provide vital services, it’s clear that there is still some way to go before this ambition can begin to be realised.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in public and social policy are interesting our research team. If you found this article interesting, you may also like to read our other education articles. 

 

 

Community planning in the devolved UK

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Community planning is all about how public bodies and other partners work with local communities to design and deliver services that suitably reflect the needs and priorities or a local area. Effective community planning incorporates strong partnership working and a shared vision which has been created especially to fit a set of local circumstances.

Providing effective and efficient services, promoting community engagement and enterprise and engaging the third sector are all things that could now be considered part of “community planning”. It is founded on the idea that communities know best; they know what they need, they know how it can be delivered and how they will use services in the most effective way to get the most value from them. With an increase in political devolution we have seen different approaches to delivering community planning emerge in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some nations embraced it from a very early stage, others less so. However, it has become an increasingly popular model over recent years, with all four administrations now using some form of community planning model.

England

In England, the focus has largely been on housing and land use and the relationship between community plans (which consider services and public engagement) and local development plans (which focus more on the physical aspects of planning in the community, such as land use). Neighbourhood plans give communities the opportunity to develop a shared vision for and shape the development and growth of their local area. Neighbourhood plans are not a legal requirement, but a right which communities can evoke if they wish to. They are designed to fit alongside local authority produced “local plans” and provide an opportunity for communities to set out a long term vision for their area in terms of development, and “may encourage them to consider ways to improve their neighbourhood other than through the development and use of land.”

Scotland

The introduction of the 2015 Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act is a clear indication of the stance of the Scottish Government with regards to community planning. As well as statutory rights being strengthened with regards to consultation and community consultation, the legislation also places statutory requirements on public bodies with regards to supporting local community based service delivery, and actively engaging local people in decision making processes. As a result of the legislation 32 Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) now exist in Scotland and they are responsible for developing and delivering community plans. These can take two forms:

  • a larger plan, which takes account of the whole CPP area (Local Outcomes Improvement Plan)
  • a smaller plan, which focuses on a smaller geographic area which has been identified as being in need of improvement (locality plan)

There is no limit to the number of plans CPP’s can create in a year, but the views of local communities are particularly important in creating these as that is the way to best reflect local needs and priorities.

In Scotland a consultation is also currently underway to consider ways to align community and spatial planning more closely, as it was recognised that planning for services should also be mapped along with physical development.

Wales

In a Welsh context the use of community planning focuses on resource allocation and the direction of resource to where it is needed. Promoting community cohesion and well-being through community planning is also something which can be seen in both Wales and Scotland. Increasingly, plans have attempted to incorporate a “place-centred”, “service focused”, “partnership led” approach, with the emphasis on individual need. It is hoped that by bringing service providers and other partners back in touch with the people who use their services that their views can be taken on in future planning projects. As in all community planning projects, partnerships are key; however in Wales one of the biggest challenges has been forming these partnerships and getting buy-in from local businesses. A similar challenge has also been seen with national level bodies.

This challenge of engaging national bodies in community planning has also been seen in Scotland. National bodies are expected to engage with rural and urban CPP’s in ways which reflect individual community need, something they had not been used to doing previously. As a result, promoting flexibility and adaptability and encouraging participation from a range of stakeholders in order to support the creation and delivery of community plans has been high on the agenda across the UK.

Northern Ireland

The situation in Northern Ireland is, to a large extent, still evolving. Executives at Stormont, as well as planners and developers, see engaging local people as important but they are also trying to find a model which works best for a Northern Irish context. Potential options for integrating community based models have included adopting models from England or Scotland respectively; creating their own model which takes elements from a number of different models; or making attempts to align the Northern Irish model closer to that of the Republic of Ireland.

Currently the legislative basis for community planning in Northern Ireland is set out in the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014. The Act makes a statutory link between community plans and local land use development plans, and makes the link between community planning for a district and well-being more explicit.

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Engaging difficult to reach communities in community planning

The views of local communities are particularly important when creating community plans, as their fundamental principle is to reflect service and resource need more effectively in order to benefit communities. As a result community planners across the UK face the unilateral challenge of getting people to engage. Different groups within a community may have different capacity and ability to engage. ‘Hard to reach’ groups are particularly important to the consultation process as it is often they who make the most use of services or have the greatest need for specific service provision. People in this group may include young people, older people, ethnic minorities or other socially excluded groups, and small businesses. They are also sometimes referred to as ‘seldom heard’ groups.

Methods to improve communication and consultation with hard to reach groups vary, but some potential barriers and solutions to engagement include:

  • Jargon and technical language – Policy and planning documents can be very long, and very dense, with lots of planning specific technical jargon, create an easy access version so that everyone can be engaged in discussions and not feel intimidated by “high level” documents.
  • Digital illiteracy – Increasingly consultation documents, some forums and copies of the plans themselves are held online, and improving access to these would help to encourage more people to participate.
  • Awareness and accessibility – Promoting consultations or community planning events, and holding them at a variety of times and in a variety of settings to allow people from different groups to attend. In addition providing them in multiple languages, using language that is more accessible for young people, or in a larger type size may also help to encourage people to participate.
  • Showing impact – Create follow up documents so that people can see how their input has made a difference. Even if the plan won’t be implemented for a number of months, let people know how what they said influenced or changed the decisions that were made.

It is clear that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are at different stages in their community planning journey. However, they have all, in one way or another recognised the importance of engaging communities to identify needs and attempt to allocate resources accordingly. In many instances, these community agendas have not just been linked to spatial, or even service planning, but also to wider issues around inequality and well-being and how resources and planning across all areas can best be directed to tackle this. It may be that we see this reflected further in future legislation.

This blog reflects on a recent paper by Deborah Peel and Simon Pemberton “Exploring New Models of Community based Planning in the Devolved UK” a study funded by the Planning Exchange Foundation.

Idox Information Service members can access our research briefing on engaging communities in planning.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in public and social policy are interesting our research team.

English Planning in Crisis: new ideas to recapture the purpose of planning in England

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“Essentially, the values of planning have been stood on their head, to the point where we have to ask whether the system remains fit for purpose.”

This is the stark assessment from the authors of a new book from Policy Press. In English Planning in Crisis, Hugh Ellison and Kate Henderson reflect on planning reforms since 2010, and argue that “the rich Utopian tradition that underpinned the town planning movement in England is dead, and needs wholesale recreation.”

The importance of planning

English Planning in Crisis highlights how essential planning is to the quality of life, noting that some of its key achievements have included securing mixed-use developments, the provision of social and genuinely affordable homes and protecting some of England’s most important landscapes. At its best, the authors contend, planning can provide for rich habitats and green space, good quality design, inclusion and resilience. But now, they argue, the once visionary town planning movement has become “little more than a residual form of land licensing.”

Reform and decline

The authors acknowledge that the decline of planning in England did not start in 2010. But they reserve particular criticism for the deregulation of policy on planning, housing and the built environment introduced under the coalition and Conservative governments.

Among the reforms in their sights are the withdrawal of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which had allowed councils to adopt their own sustainability levels as a planning requirement for new residential development, and the Deregulation Act 2015, which removed local planning authorities’ powers concerning construction, layout or energy performance of new dwellings.

There is also concern about extending the Right to Buy to 1.3 million housing association tenants, which the authors say has the potential “to transform socially and economically diverse communities into exclusively wealthy ones.” Similarly, they contend that the Conservative government’s Starter Homes policy (offering new-build houses at a price below their market value) will largely be of help to high earners.

Taken together, according to the book’s authors, reforms introduced since 2010 have resulted in a planning system that delivers poor-quality places, badly-designed dwellings, houses that are affordable only to middle and high-income earners, and ignores the challenges of climate change and an ageing population.

Planning beyond England

Before putting forward their ideas for rethinking the planning system in England, the authors look at planning systems elsewhere. They suggest that approaches adopted in Wales and Scotland provide pointers to how the English planning system can get back on track. They are particularly complimentary about Scotland’s framework for the spatial development of the country as a whole, which they suggest provides certainty and long-term thinking about planning. The authors also praise two regeneration initiatives in the city of Hamburg which have transformed derelict land into sources of renewable energy.

Ten steps to rebuild planning

The second half of English Planning in Crisis sets out a collection of evidence-based ideas for rebuilding England’s planning system. These include:

  • Replacing the current fragmented approach to planning for the future with a clear vision
  • Establishing a government department for spatial planning
  • Engaging with communities and individuals to develop solutions to the nation’s problems
  • Transforming the planning profession from an “old boys club” into a new generation of diverse and inclusive placemakers
  • Reform of planning education
  • A framework of equal rights in planning decisions
  • A national debate on house-building
  • Ensuring new homes are accessible for the elderly and disabled
  • Delivering sustainable homes, including a new zero-carbon policy
  • Fair taxation of land values.

The authors stress that these proposals are underpinned by the values of the Utopian tradition that inspired examples of planning at its best, including garden cities and the 1947 Town Planning Act. These values include social justice, fair rights to participate in decisions, and the fair distribution of resources arising from the development of land and primary resources.

In conclusion, the authors of English Planning in Crisis argue that only by reclaiming those essential values can England’s planning system recapture its purpose:

“Our future depends on the discovery of those democratic and altruistic qualities that once formed the ethos of town planning.”

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