Tag Archives: knowledge management

Introducing the Idox Information Service … supporting evidence use for over 40 years

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Exterior of the Idox Information Service office in Glasgow

Exterior of the Idox Information Service office in Glasgow

As a team who work every day to supply evidence and good practice to our clients in the public sector and consultancies, it would be easy to feel a bit down about the ease with which the idea of a post-truth world has taken grip.

In fact however, it’s heartening that so many organisations continue to recognise the value that our service brings. Not only does it offer a continuing professional development resource for staff, it also acts as a channel for knowledge sharing between organisations – helping them when they have to review services, look for efficiencies, or transform what they do in light of changing government policy or priorities.

We know that much of what we do can remain hidden, even to our own members. So let’s go under the bonnet of our unique service …

Who we are

The Idox Information Service is a membership library service, which was established over forty years ago – originally under the name of the Planning Exchange. At the outset, the emphasis was on the provision of resources to support professionals working in planning and the built environment in Scotland, but over the years we’ve expanded our subject coverage to cover the whole spectrum of public sector information, and across the UK.

Our members include policy makers and practitioners from organisations including local authorities, central government, universities, think tanks, consultancies and charities. They work in challenging environments and often need evidence to inform service delivery or decision-making.

Our work

Our team is made up of a mix of researchers, public policy specialists and qualified librarians, along with support staff. They have professional memberships, including chartered membership of CILIP and the Social Research Association. This picture shows the typical range of activities in a year:

2014 statsPublic policy is an ever-evolving subject and so current awareness services are a big part of what we do. Members can set up their own subject alerts on anything that interests them, and we also have a set of weekly and fortnightly updates on common topics. Last year we added three new current awareness updates on Devolution, Smart Cities and of course, Brexit!

UK grey literature is a particular strength of our collection. We spend a lot of time sourcing documents such as technical reports from government agencies, and research reports produced by think tanks, university departments, charities and consultancies which are often overlooked by other databases. Recent research has highlighted the value of grey literature for public policy and practice.

We also write our own research briefings for members on different topics, with more detailed analysis of research and policy developments, and including case studies and good practice. Some of these briefings are publicly available on our publications page.

The interest from members in using our Ask a Researcher service has been increasing, due to the time pressures and other challenges that people face in sourcing and reviewing information. An example looking at the links between employee wellbeing and productivity is on our website. Members regularly comment on the usefulness of the results, and it’s satisfying to be able to make a direct contribution to their work in this way.

Keeping it personal

While our online database allows our members to search for and access resources themselves, there is a strong personal element to our work.

Our members know that we’re always available at the end of the phone or via email to provide them with dedicated support when they need it. It’s important to us that we provide a quality service which keeps pace with the changing needs and expectations of a varied membership base.

Hopefully, this article has provided some insight into the way that the Knowledge Exchange supports staff and organisations across a variety of fields. More information about the service can be found here.

In 2015, the Idox Information Service was recognised as a key organisation supporting evidence use in government and the public sector. It was named by NESTA / Alliance for Useful Evidence / Social Innovation Partnership in their mapping of the UK evidence ecosystem.

We also contribute data to the Social Policy and Practice database, which focuses on health and social care evidence, and is a resource recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

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

Knowledge Insider: Creating new cultures and successfully using evidence in planning, with Waheed Nazir, Birmingham City Council

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Waheed nazir blogLocal authorities face many challenges when it comes to creating successful places. In this Q&A I speak to Waheed Nazir, Director of Planning and Regeneration at Birmingham City Council. I find out how his infectious enthusiasm for shaping and leading a skilled planning team has impacted on research and evidence.

Waheed, can you describe the situation and challenges you faced leading regeneration activity in Birmingham?

There was incredible talent but a lot of silo working. Even though we had a whole planning department, the functions were all separate, including housing and economic development – all well intended and trying to achieve things for Birmingham, but there wasn’t a bigger picture of what we were trying to create.

Taking over a department just as we were entering into recession, with a 40% cost reduction target and a requirement for outsourcing, was a challenge, so rather than tackle them separately I brought all those areas together. I used those drivers to develop a new approach. I wanted to create a working environment based on common sense and the main objectives were:

1. Breaking down barriers
2. Achieve savings, due to reducing the number of managers
3. Develop my staff and utilise their skills at all levels.

I needed strategic planners who understand and appreciate the local level market, and I wanted all professions, like planning control, involved in doing the policy. Applying real life knowledge and experience, and using the strength of the different disciplines to develop real talent.

By doing this, although we had a 40% budget reduction, overall performance has gone the other way, because individual performance has improved so much. Staff who have left since, have gone on to do really well elsewhere as lead planners, and that’s my real achievement, that the plan put in place created successful staff.

Although resources were reducing, our capacity increased, because from a regeneration perspective, in recession you aren’t firefighting with developers. As development activity slows, it’s important to use that time efficiently, to put in place the strategic documents and the structure you need for when activity returns. It’s a time to reskill staff and to invest in them, so all documents were written in-house. I developed a new ethos and culture, and gave them the documents to own and develop – this is the biggest learning experience.

In 2011/12 I concentrated on organisational structure, roles and new direction – which focused on delivery. I wanted us to create a model of how we will deliver the big city plan which everyone bought into and understood. We worked extensively with government departments to take forward funding tools like EZ [enterprise zones], which now in place gives us funding to support infrastructure up to £1billion and we have already committed £275m.

Population growth was the other big challenge facing the region; forecasts have changed and keep being revised up, the latest increasing by 150,000. As a result we need to do as much housing development as we can. I was not the biggest fan of the RSS (Regional Spatial Strategy) but it did provide a means of allocating land for housing, which was lost on a more strategic basis.

What were the key tasks essential to creating your success?

  • Vision is absolutely critical to what we are trying to achieve. Being able to articulate what you are trying to achieve is vital to getting everyone on board.
  • Leadership – you have to be willing to make very difficult decisions, which can be unpopular. Strong leadership is key to delivery. People leave because of bad processes and lack of leadership, so I encourage leadership across the team – if the policy or process is wrong then change it and replace it, and people administering it are often the ones best placed to see this.
  • The right structure to deliver the vision. Making sure you have the right range of skills and different types of planner, with different perspectives and approaches, and with the right approach to challenging. Pick people who are better than you to complement your strengths. I developed our own graduate programme to grow our own high quality staff with these qualities.
  • Focus on who the customer is, and what the process they have to deal with is actually doing. For instance, ‘if I am selling my house and can’t find my application’ – we scraped the charging fee as it’s easy to do, not labour intensive and really helps the customer out for very little effort. The places we change and the people we service are the important thing.
  • Never thinking things are impossible. Forget the process, forget the funding, what are we trying to achieve and how do we do it? Keep the customer at the heart at it all.

What did you put in place and what actions did you take?

I changed the department structure and developed the attitude of always thinking “it’s never finished”. I developed the approach of looking to other places – the best research is in other places, UK and globally, always looking for both the good and bad. I established working with the private sector, embracing the ideas of private equity. The first 2 years was about getting the house in order, and the 3rd and 4th year are about working with the private sector. It’s about building mutual respect, and giving them confidence to invest in Birmingham. Developing a two way process so they get a perspective on our roles and we get a better perspective on theirs.

I also run the Birmingham Housing Municipal Trust, so we build housing and know what it takes to build it. This helps you appreciate the challenges the private sector is facing. It’s not rocket science, but it is about knowing the market, and being able to be confident about getting a fair deal for the city and also knowing if developers can’t deliver, I can help them.

As a housing development company, we were struggling with finding the right sites. It’s a big job to work out where the sites are, but for the market outside it’s even more difficult, without the local knowledge. So we developed a prospectus for sites, including constraints, sites, services etc and on the back of this, helped bring about 2000 homes forward. It was easy to bring together, helps developers with research and introduction fees, and they can easily spot the sites and who to contact.

Other benefits have been created which we didn’t expect by working closely with developers. If they can see the purpose, such as industrial land being brought forward, they are willing to pay more attention to section 106 and provide employment or apprenticeships because of good working relationships.

How can policy makers/practitioners benefit from developing their knowledge and use of evidence?

The type of evidence we use can be very different depending on the activity – the local plan is very different to the big city plan. For a local plan you need scale of projections and development opportunities, technical evidence on transport etc.

Although I always like work to be carried out internally to grow and retain knowledge, sometimes it is necessary to commission research externally, to be independent, check our understanding, and refresh it. Market evidence and financial modelling of impact, alongside economic modelling of the benefits are vital, but as planners we don’t articulate this very well – it starts and stops with place, but actually its long term, structural and widespread change that we need.

I don’t bring consultants in to just take intelligence from staff – we use them for new things and to fill gaps in my own staff’s knowledge and ensure knowledge is transferred. I like to liberate staff, show them they can do it, that they have the talent and energy to make change happen – that’s important and personal knowledge enables that to happen.

Planners need to make sure there is a strong evidence base to look at the overall locality, creating localised solutions, using projections and indicators, i.e. rents data or government locations. Evidence needs to balance with vision. It’s about being brave and ambitious about the art of the possible.

How do you think people will be doing evidence, research and knowledge development in 5 years’ time?

The biggest change will be building modelling into the evidence base, such as economic modelling to test impact, capacity, and income. Modelling the impact of new policies and what they actually do, such as the new homes bonus. We will continue to do traditional evidence work, but increasing the cross-policy integration and impact analysis of issues, such as climate change or flooding, using better data, which all has to be part of the impact measurement.

What are the mistakes people make when it comes to developing evidence, things you which you really need to avoid?

Understanding the quality of what’s out there – knowing how to ask the right question is how you get the right answer. It’s the first, and most important, stage. This means getting the brief right, otherwise you’re in the situation of ‘that’s what you have commissioned’ so can’t change it easily.

When you are commissioning, build in flexibility, the ability to change the work to reflect the changing outputs of the research and the development of the findings and the new questions it raises. You need scope to look at projections which aren’t slavish to past trends, which can reflect the vision you are trying to create, not just tell you about the current state of play. These days all local authorities have lost the evidence base teams they used to have so building that skill set through the whole team is vital.

If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ about research, evidence and knowledge you would recommend, what would you include and why?

Take graduates and train them, round their experience in all the areas, including the private sector – develop the future of the profession by creating good planners.

Surround yourself with people who are better than you, their collective strength reflects well on you and it creates the best results for the place.

Be Bold! Fortune favours the brave and the bold, we have a big responsibility and we have to be brave for the places we look after.

 

This article is one of a series looking at how evidence is used in practice. Read our interviews with our previous ‘Knowledge Insiders’ …

Want to know about social work theory or neighbourhood planning? We’ve got the answers!

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Subject coverage

By Heather Cameron

With the wealth of information available these days, it’s no wonder we hear the term information overload more and more. Whatever topic you are looking for information on, it can be difficult to find sources you you can rely on, with internet searches retrieving a lot of unreliable material. This is where services such as ours can be invaluable.

Helping you with information overload

The Idox Information Service database contains over 200,000 items with around 200 new items added every week, covering all aspects of public and social policy.

The material consists of research reports, articles from academic journals and industry magazines, policy, guidance, evaluations, case studies, good practice and grey literature. All are chosen and summarised by our research team, so you know that you are accessing reliable resources, many of which are not freely available on the internet.

Breadth of coverage

Popular searches recently carried out by our members have included the following topics, which demonstrate the breadth of our coverage:

  • Theories in social work
  • Child exploitation
  • Anti-discriminatory practice in social work
  • Neighbourhood planning
  • Place-based approaches
  • City deals
  • Smart cities
  • Wellbeing and work
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Planning for social inclusion
  • Wind farms and their impact
  • Green economy
  • Widening access to higher education
  • Joint working between universities and business
  • Social media
  • Marketing and branding
  • Performance management
  • Food banks

Our database has a wide range of material covering various aspects of these topics, including recently published work that keeps our members up-to-date.

Recent research

Members searching on any of these topics can be reassured that the latest research and commentary is included, as the database is updated daily.

For example, for the search on placed-based approaches, a recent article from Regions, The meta-approach to regional development: a re-appraisal of place-based thinking looks at the thinking which informs the practice of place-based approaches to local and regional development.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ recent report on whether worker well-being affects workplace performance could be of particular relevance for the search on well-being and work, as could Public Health England’s report on workplace interventions to improve health and well-being.

With all the media coverage around child exploitation cases in recent times, it’s not surprising that our members continue to search for recent information and good practice in this area. One of the most recent items on child exploitation we have added highlights lessons from Oxfordshire, where the council’s reputation has been raised to one of national exemplar in tackling child exploitation.

Searching on joint working between universities and businesses would reveal promising practice of employer-education engagement across London and the South East in a recent report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), as part of a study examining how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-businesses in particular work together with secondary schools and colleges. In addition, a recent UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) report on university and employer collaboration outlines the ways in which universities and employers can form collaborative partnerships to develop higher level skills.

Search strategies

Of course, some of these topics will inevitably retrieve a lot of results, so using our advanced search option can help to narrow things down. For example, searching for “neighbourhood planning” in the title field will return 86 results compared to 277 results when searching in all fields:

Basic search

basic search

Advanced search

advanced searchIn comparison, searching for “neighbourhood planning” on Google returns rather more with around 260,000 results. I think it would be fair to say that it may take a long time to find the quality information required if you had to sift through all these!

 

Members of the Idox Information Service can conduct their own database searches, or can request a search by one of our Research Officers. 

Become a member of the Idox Information Service now, to access our database and current awareness ervices in the areas of public and social policy. Contact us for more details.

Celebrating a different kind of library: the Idox Information Service

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Number 95

Exterior of the Idox Information Service office, an art deco building in Glasgow

by Laura Dobie

It’s National Libraries Day this Saturday, and events are being held up and down the country to celebrate libraries and their contribution to communities. When people think of libraries, it tends to be public libraries which spring to mind and rows of bookshelves. However, the library sector is diverse.  Many librarians and information professionals work in different types of organisations, with different kinds of service users.

With libraries taking centre stage over the course of this weekend, we wanted to showcase our own specialist library service and the skills of our library staff.

Who we are

The Idox Information Service is a membership library service, which was established over thirty years ago under its earlier name of the Planning Exchange. At the outset the emphasis was on the provision of resources to support professionals working in planning and the built environment, but we’ve expanded our subject coverage over the years to cover the whole spectrum of public sector information.

Our members include policy makers and practitioners from organisations including local authorities, central government, universities, think tanks, consultancies and charities. They work in challenging environments and often need evidence to inform service delivery or decision-making.

Our work

Our research officers are all qualified librarians, and many are chartered members of CILIP. This picture shows the range of activities last year:

2014 statsGrey literature is a particular strength of our collection. We spend a lot of time sourcing documents such as technical reports from government agencies, and research reports produced by think tanks, university departments, charities and consultancies which are often overlooked by other databases. Recent research has highlighted the value of grey literature for public policy and practice.

Although we may work in a specialist sector, many of our activities will be familiar from other libraries. We do our own abstracting and cataloguing, and current awareness services are a big part of what we do.

We also write our own research briefings for members on different topics, with more detailed analysis of research and policy developments, and including case studies and good practice. Some of these briefings are publicly available on our publications page.

The interest from members in using our Ask a Researcher service has been increasing, due to the time pressures and other challenges that people face in sourcing and reviewing information. A recent example looking at the links between employee wellbeing and productivity is on our website. Members regularly comment on the usefulness of the results, and it’s satisfying to be able to make a direct contribution to their work in this way.

Keeping it personal

While there has been an increasing trend towards self-service in libraries, and our online database allows our members to search for and access resources themselves, there is a strong personal element to our work.

Our members know that we’re always available at the end of the phone or via email to provide them with dedicated support when they need it. It’s important to us that we provide a quality service which keeps pace with the changing needs and expectations of a varied membership base.

Hopefully this article has provided some insight into a different kind of library, and library and information work, and the way in which we support professionals across a variety of fields. More information about the service can be found here.

Laura Dobie is a Research Officer at the Idox Information Service and a chartered librarian. She writes regular blog articles and research briefings for the service, and tweets for @IdoxInfoService

Knowledge insider…. a Q & A with Jonathan Breckon

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jonathan_breckon_150x150In the latest of our series of Q&As with leading advocates of the use of evidence in policymaking and practice, we talk to Jonathan Breckon. Jonathan is Head of the Alliance for Useful Evidence – a partnership which champions the need for useful evidence, providing a focal point for improving and extending the use of social research and evidence in the UK.

Jonathan, what led you to a role about promoting and improving knowledge development? 

There are two ways in which I am interested in knowledge development; professionally I have always worked around universities, loved doing and finding out new research and working within research in UK. I have always been conscious however, of the gap between research and front line services, even when research is relevant to the service, and felt this was a great loss and disadvantage to public services.

My personal interest, as a user of public services, with my kids going through services such as schools, health and sports, I have been desperately aware that things are business as usual rather than continuously striving for innovation and change. The debate is now all about money and reductions when it should be about improvement and future proofing.

We don’t always know what it takes to bridge the gap between what we need, and what services can provide; research can actually help that. The What Works approach is really important but very hard, as it’s difficult to stop doing things we have already invested in. An evidence-based research approach can challenge and support this evaluation and we have a moral duty to do it and not continue to invest in services which don’t work.

What do you think the main benefits of developing your knowledge are?

The challenge of seeing if things work or not, why they work, where they work and who they work for – developing your knowledge is the critical aspect of improving how you do things.

It’s also important for a whole host of other benefits. I particularly like Carol Weiss’ work, which is instrumental – this ‘enlightment’ operational research should not be dismissed. This approach can support the ideas of learning continuously through research; it implies a continuous review of theory, methods, practice and we should always be striving to improve our methods and outcomes.

When people are talking to you about evidence, research or knowledge, what do they most frequently raise as issues?

The most common one is that investing in evidence is just rhetoric; politicians, charities, parties etc will never really be informed by the research agenda, and I agree. We aren’t in a super-rational culture, it’s about our wider culture, values and beliefs as well. But it’s a fundamental misunderstanding that research trumps anything. It is part of the mix, part of the overall democratic and rational approach to doing anything.

The Behavioural Insights Team has a massive role to play in understanding the biases in how we make decisions, whether in prisons, police, policy etc. We don’t work rationally all the time and evidence can help us understand the messiness of policy making. We just need it to be a bigger part of the mix.

Everybody has this view that they use evidence but we don’t really understand how effectively they use it.

What are the hard to spot mistakes when it comes to developing your knowledge, which you really need to avoid?

The main one is that not all evidence is equal; that you have to make judgements about it. This is hard for those writing the research – it’s not about the quality of the research, and it’s about the point of view from demand. They need some things and not others.

The big challenge, if you are looking at impact, is you need different approaches, experiments, systematic reviews – one study is not enough. Such as when you see studies reported in newspapers – until replicated we don’t really know if it is robust. You need to avoid literature reviews where you cherry pick, go to something which is transparent and is systematic. This is true of both policy makers and researchers’ point of view; we underestimate the challenges facing both sides.

Need more about impact. We are very good at qualitative – world class – but we are behind in quantitative methods. It is being addressed but it will need to filter through.

How do you think people will be doing evidence, research and knowledge development in 5 years’ time?

What Works Centres will, I hope, be a key part of the evidence ecosystem, in the way that NICE have done, helping providers and policy makers make decisions. Although it doesn’t do research itself it sucks in research and uses it well.

There will always be critics of them, even of just the name, but they will change the system. Some have been around for a while and are well established, but others are new and are just about to be. As well as synthesising research they will commission new work. For instance in wellbeing, we know a lot about the correlation with health and wellbeing but don’t know a lot about what will work in improving it.

Technology makes it very difficult to guess about the future, who would have predicted the work in social media research? Big data is emerging now and in 5 years’ time might be a standard tool. The fundamental principles like statistics will be there but we will have to adapt to the possibilities offered by technology

If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ about research, evidence and knowledge you would recommend, what would you include and why?

Just because you have done a social science masters and PhD, does not make you an expert in evidence, partly because people over-specialise. People need open their minds to different methods and how people do it in other places. The Department for International Development have an amazing range of techniques, nothing like anything you have seen, with a database of all the research they have funded or delivered.

Emerging opportunities such as social media research – still early days and fundamentally new, and could have a huge impact. Most people’s default though is to go to an expert and be frightened off journals and academics; I don’t think you always have to commission something new, it’s about variety, breadth and developing your understanding in as many ways as possible.

 

You can also read Q&As with Tim Allen, Local Government Knowledge Navigator; Clive Grace, Local Government Knowledge Navigator; Sarah Jennings of the Knowledge Hub; and Kim Ryley, recent Past President of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

 

Knowledge insider… a Q & A with Tim Allen

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tim allenIn the latest in our series looking at evidence based practice, I spoke to Tim Allen, co-owner of two research consultancies, previously research director for the Local Government Association and a senior civil servant for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Treasury. Tim is also one of the Local Government Knowledge Navigators.

Tim, what led you to a role promoting and improving knowledge development?

My interest in the practical use of knowledge and evidence is long standing.

I started my career as a property professional and very quickly moved to the former Agriculture Development and Advisory Service, where my role was to encourage knowledge exchange and technology transfer in improving agricultural production and fostering environmentally sensitive farming.

As I moved on, I became a member of the executive board for the then Countryside Agency where I was responsible for a wide range of activities, including establishing a corporate research function to inform rural policy at a time when this was high profile, something that I subsequently followed through in roles in the Treasury and DEFRA by setting up a rural policy function in the early 2000s.

More recently, I moved to the Local Government Association as research director with a key role to support the case for local government by providing or sourcing evidence to inform policy development, on a wide range of topics from the impact on public services of migration through to climate change or encouraging supermarkets to reduce waste by reducing product packaging.

During this time, I also sponsored the LARCI Initiative, which brought together UK Research Councils, academics and local government on the basis that local government wasn’t benefitting from very substantial national investment in research and development.

A key lesson for me from that experience (which had it’s successes, but ultimately didn’t quite reach out to local government in the way that we hoped) was the importance not of the research report that may or may not sit on shelves, but of the knowledge and experience lodged in the heads of the researchers concerned – which can be a knowledge base built on years, if not decades, of working in that field.

To me, applying research to the practical problems of local public service policy and practice is about actively – and intelligently – bringing people together to collaborate, learn and exchange ideas and knowledge. Local Government has to tackle often complex and interconnected issues, such as public health and social care, supporting the most vulnerable in society, tackling waste, and planning for transport.

In our role as Local Government Knowledge Navigators, we passionately believe that as local government and local public services face eye watering cuts to funding and increased demand, we need to look for new sources of knowledge and innovation. Whilst some of this can and will come from within, when you are under pressure, you need to look more widely for wise and long term solutions, or the clues that can help you reach these such solutions.

What do you think the main benefits of developing your knowledge are?

To use an old term, Continuing Professional Development – the world does not stand still, people in policy need to keep up, to make sure we are on top of where the best knowledge is and to apply it. As resources are constrained at the moment, you really do need that knowledge even more.

What you do, why you do it and how, needs to be demonstrated and organisations need to be sure they are making good, sound decisions. If short term decisions made necessarily in haste are to be well informed and robust – and not cause regret later because they were sub-optimal – they require good quality evidence and knowledge. Otherwise they risk creating the catastrophes of tomorrow.

The benefits of knowledge based decisions include confidence in decisions – and crucially, political assurance that they are soundly based – even if this means exposing yourself to new, and potentially disruptive influences. For example, who would think that multivariate modelling that draws from the world of engineering has application in social care: well the answer is that it does, and colleagues in Southampton University are showing how this approach can inform demand management and care planning for the elderly.

However, we start from a very low base, with little systematic research and development serving local government despite the fact that the sector still spends over 20% of public expenditure. We are on a journey: Local Government doesn’t have the resources for this, yet there are beacons of exemplary good practice in applying research and research knowledge to impressive effect, but these examples are just that, episodic and without systemic adoption.

We need to connect local government to new, relevant knowledge, but not long academic tomes of research, it’s the connection between the researcher and the practitioner that is of value. One driver ought to be CPD and the need to connect with practitioners. This should be about knowledge exchange, based around people as well as the research, with approaches that foster ‘co-production’ of knowledge and the ‘co-definition’ of problems. Integrating the researcher into the system and creating a research loop, with dialogue during research.

Developments in policy around research funding are helpful in placing ever stronger emphasis on real world impact, but we need a shift in Local Government also to embrace new sources of knowledge. And this includes our local politicians who should see this as a means to have a more informed dialogue with citizens, not a threat because new knowledge may challenge pre-conceptions: austerity should leave no place for ill informed policies.

When people are talking to you about evidence, research or knowledge, what do they most frequently raise as issues?

How you respond to substantial reductions in public funding? How to know whether you are making the right decisions? Am I commissioning the right services, will it work and work for a period of years? What will local government look like in five years time? In a world where local government has shifted from an industrial scale service provider through to being a commissioner and, increasingly, a minor funder yet still accountable when things go wrong (e.g. care support for the elderly which is substantively in the private sector) – how do you deal with that? How do you deal with complexity? How do you manage within the commercial environment or commissioning framework? How do you avoid the major failures?

What are the hard to spot mistakes when it comes to developing your knowledge, which you really need to avoid?

Know where the expertise lies – to what degree can we rely on the resources we are being pointed to, and are those resources transferable? Are they robust enough to be reliable? Are we relying on unsubstantiated stories about good practice?

People often don’t know that useful evidence exists, and there is a huge disconnect between publicly funded research, which should be informing practice and local government. The drivers of success in academia are all too often publishing in academic journals that are peer reviewed and rigorous, yet ultimately often never reach practitioners.

There is also a disconnect between where research is published and where practitioners go for their information. As a result, we need structured facilitation to bring the two together (using the thrust for academic research to demonstrate real world impact) around the issues that practitioners face and help both sides come together. And before we become dispirited, there are many in the research world who want to get involved in public policy and practice, and see their research have real impact.

People often think of knowledge and research as an overhead. This is a false view and we can draw on lessons such as a recent piece by the former Swedish Prime Minister Goren Persson on the things you need to do to get yourself through severe cuts and change. He highlights how important it is to have clarity, vision and evidence, with a clear view that something at the end of the change will be better.

How do you think people will be doing evidence, research and knowledge development in five years’ time?

I would hope that we are beginning a culture shift, that will become more embedded and systemic across local government and local public services with Local Government people and researchers better connected, and with many more accessible routes and pathways to link the two.

We may not have nirvana, but we would have local dialogue with active research agendas under way which are delivering results and an equitable portion of national investment in research working for local government being steered or influenced by the sector.

The seeds are there, it just needs leadership, from those who fund research, and from local government and public services to push for this access to – and collaboration with – the research and development base, to turn what has been ad hoc and happenstance to something more systemic.

For example, in practical terms, this could include effective use of knowledge and evidence as part of peer review in local government, and professional societies and groups engaging in the agenda through CPD, but more fundamentally, fostering a thirst for knowledge rather than creating a compliance culture.

If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ about research, evidence and knowledge you would recommend, what would you include and why?

  • Dialogue with your local university, find out how you can work together: there are a whole range of potential opportunities that might be a Vice Chancellor getting involved in strategy, or researchers working in partnership on a particular policy or project such as smart city development or demography.
  • Come to us as knowledge navigators to get help, make connections (which might be a about accessing national expertise.
  • Let’s exploit the recently announced ESRC ‘impact accelerator accounts’; funding is available to encourage 24 universities and research institutions to engage with external stakeholders, including local public services, to explore opportunies.

You can also read a Q&A with Clive Grace, Local Government Knowledge Navigator; a Q&A with Sarah Jennings of the Knowledge Hub; and a Q&A with Kim Ryley, recent Past President of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

The Use and Application of Knowledge: A practitioner’s Guide

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This presentation was given by our director, Rebecca Riley, at our recent event ‘Investing in Knowledge – improving services and decision-making‘. It explores different decision making models and how services like The Knowledge Exchange inform different stages of the decision making process. Stay tuned for the rest of the presentations from the day.

Knowledge insider… a Q&A with Kim Ryley

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Kim Ryley

Welcome to the third of our blog series in the run up to our Conference, looking at our experiences and how we invest in knowledge, I interviewed Kim Ryley, who is speaking at our London event on the 10 December. Kim Ryley has 35 years experience in local public service, with 14 of these as a Chief Executive in several large City and Unitary Councils. He is a recent Past President of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (Solace, UK), is a Solace Board Director, and is currently Chair of the Society’s business arm, Solace in Business, as well as the Society’s Lead on International Relations.

Kim, what led you to a role promoting and improving knowledge development?  

I think it started early in my career, many years ago, long before the quality management of information became the norm in local government. Originally, I worked in the local education service, in the days before performance league tables for schools. One thing that struck me forcibly then was that there was little attempt to judge how successful the money invested in local schools was in raising the levels of educational attainment. Continue reading →

Knowledge insider… a Q&A with Sarah Jennings

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sarah jenningsWelcome to the second of our blog series in the run up to our Conference, looking at how we invest in knowledge, this time with Sarah Jennings, Director of Digital and Community Engagement at CapacityGrid. She’s responsible for the Knowledge Hub, an online space for cross-sector collaboration focused on sharing good practice, ideas generation and supporting public sector transformation.

Sarah, what led you to a role promoting and improving knowledge development?  

I started my working career as a specialist librarian. Whilst working at the Royal Society an internal opportunity came up to manage the websites. This was digital in its infancy before the term existed, first generation activity in digital! However it seemed obvious that knowledge and information sharing would be key components.

After that I moved into the education sector, managing the online work at the previous incarnation of SSAT (The Schools Network) when it had responsibility for delivery of the specialist schools and academies remits for government. We specialised in providing support and training in teaching and learning; curriculum; networking and leadership development. This is where I first started to see the real benefits of technology as an enabler for peer-to-peer sharing of knowledge, case studies and best practice across networks of teachers.

Following a spell in regional government, I moved to the Local Government Association. Here I was responsible for the digital estate, including developing our communities of practice. However, people and sectors were still siloed and not sharing to best effect. So the launch of its successor, the Knowledge Hub, was an attempt to tackle this through building networks of people that weren’t necessarily around a theme and made use of emerging social media tools and techniques. I didn’t set off to do this and don’t really see myself as a knowledge manager. I’m more a convener of people. I enjoy connecting people up, facilitating conversations and getting people working together to improve things. I like herding cats; and seem to be quite good at it!

What do you think the main benefits of developing your knowledge are?

Keeping up to date with what is going on, the areas I work in, the sector I work in – I’m the sort of person who likes to devour knowledge.

I enjoy building my own network. I’m always surprised how often I look up someone I met or worked with a while ago and we do something amazing. In most areas I see myself as having a broad-based knowledge, rather than depth, however I do consider I have a reasonable knowledge where digital is concerned, having lived and breathed it for nearly 15 years in one form or another.

I think being multi-disciplinary in today’s world is a useful thing. Jobs are very different now. It’s incredible to think that developments in the last 100 years mean that some process driven professional roles have and will continue to disappear and be replaced by machines. Being multi-disciplinary is the key; a broad knowledge and skill-set means you can work across different roles within the workforce and provide more flexibility to organisational structures.

When people are talking to you about evidence, research or knowledge, what do they most frequently raise as issues?

Often, it’s “there is so much”: how do they navigate it? How do they find it? How do they know whether it’s any good? Even in Knowledge Hub, people need support and help finding what they need and this is the role of our community managers

I take advantage of my information management background, to help them to move through it, navigate. To do this well I have to recognise that everyone’s different – human nature, learning styles and decision making processes. I have to ensure Knowledge Hub caters for this diversity, whether people want formal learning with docs or forums for collaboration.

Big Data is often raised as an issue, knowledge about it, what to do with it and how to use it. Again, there’s too much and how do we know what’s worth using either for evidence or to predict future services?

But the biggest issue people face is “who are the experts?” How do you know who they are and who do you trust? The benefit of collaboration is it’s good for getting a range of information, opinions and expertise and experts, emerge from this process.

What are the hard to spot mistakes when it comes to developing your knowledge, which you really need to avoid?

Social media: your view of the world can be limited by the people you are following. Try not to (always) follow like-minded people because you get a narrow vision and view of the world. It’s important to step out of your area, look at the way people are doing things elsewhere.

Decision making: if I’m making a decision around digital, for example, I tend to talk to other digital people. Again, this can reinforce a stereotype and provide a narrow view.  It’s important to go beyond that, step outside your comfort zone, seek alternative views and break out of the silo. More often than not, we think about how we do something and not always the impact. With Knowledge Hub we are trying to introduce serendipity, introducing people to new groups and opportunities they may not have thought of, or come across, to enable this broadening to happen.

You need to be open minded, like a 360 review; get feedback, challenge your own assumptions. Everyone needs to take a break from the norm and look around them, see if what you are doing has already been tried and tested elsewhere, and you learn from.

This reflective approach is growing and it’s partly because the gender balance is improving, especially in digital, which is challenging the status quo and needs different (perhaps more?) skills. There are different ways of doing things, the best ‘managers’ out there are employing a whole range of different techniques. It’s no longer seen to be passive to have a mentoring approach, admit you don’t have all the answers and seeking help from others – even at the top!

Cass Business School, carried out research with retiring leaders from the baby boom era, asking them what they thought the next generation of leadership would need to look like. The majority said an emotional intelligence approach would be key.

Knowledge is fine but as a concept is no use unless you do something with it. We need to recognise talent and early on. Ideas and innovation can come from anywhere within an organisation. We simply need to know how to unlock it.

How do you think people will be doing evidence, research and knowledge development in 5 years’ time?

Data – It’s at the centre of everything; we are struggling with so much data, is it relevant, how do we use it?

There seems to be a couple of schools of thought on this, do we use it to learn lessons from the past or to predict what the needs are, more demand management? I think it’s a mix of both.  In terms of politics, services and understanding the world around us, this will become easier, the more data and information becomes available and we learn how to interpret it. Things like the “Internet of Things” are both exciting and daunting. To properly take advantage of these opportunities, we will need to get better at how we use data.

Skills – we will need to be cross disciplinary; able to pick up things; be collaborative; have people skills; ask the right questions; do creative analysis; then to question and assimilate what we learn. It’s not one person it’s a team, as it needs more than one person to innovate and take ideas to delivery.

As an individual you can be both specialist and cross disciplinary. It makes you valuable as a resource asset. People with specialist knowledge and the ability to look across multiple areas, will be the ones who succeed going forward, together with sufficient emotional intelligence to exhibit different decision making and leadership styles suited to the circumstance.

If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ about research, evidence and knowledge you would recommend, what would you include and why?

Collaboration – understanding where the places are to go to, the experts and knowledge – people who don’t share will be left behind.

  • Remember to ask the awkward questions
  • Don’t confine where you go for answers

Looking at those people who are getting at the forefront of research, they are doing this now.

For my own expert knowledge:

The GDS especially for implementing good standards and principles, because they’ve invested time, money and effort and there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. For example design principles; website usability; transactions; or user journeys. Their development code is all shared on GitHub, and it’s now being taken up by other countries. Mike Bracken spoke at Innovate2014 about reusing services on a global level, the whole market out there gathering info and feedback on code and improving it. We are at a crossroads, for example the public sector is starting to dictate how a service works, changing the relationship and dynamics between suppliers and buyers to one based on demand, flexibility and co-creation.

Knowledge should be about improvement, where producers respond to demand and how a service needs to be delivered to most effect. The Social Value Act has had an effect on this. The opening up of public assets means IPR is being challenged and how people get recompensed for supplying a service. At the centre of supply and demand there is still knowledge.  We just need to think differently about the wrapper and commercial model.

If you would like to hear Sarah speak about her work and how social approaches can help in knowledge sharing, sign up to our free conference in December here.

You can also read a Q&A with Clive Grace, Local Government Knowledge Navigator.

Knowledge insider … a Q&A with Clive Grace

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Clive Grace

In the first of our blog series in the run up to our Conference, looking at our experiences and how we invest in knowledge,  I interviewed Clive Grace, who is speaking at our Glasgow event on the 3rd December. He is part of the ESRC Local Government Knowledge Navigator, a two year project steered by Solace, the LGA and the ESRC to bring the research and local government communities closer together.

Hi Clive, what led you to a role promoting and improving knowledge development? 

“I am a sometime academic, and sometime practitioner, and I believe in cross fertilising my interests. This was particularly enhanced by two reviews I have carried out, looking at the engagement between academic research and local authorities through the Local Authority Research Councils’ Initiative in 2007 and 2010. Continue reading →