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Media and information literacy: navigating a complex landscape

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By Hannah Brunton

UNESCO’s Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2022 takes place from 24-31 October 2022 under the theme of “Nurturing Trust”, giving governments, educators, information professionals, and media professionals the chance to discuss and reflect on critical issues that the world is facing in relation to misinformation and disinformation, and the challenges of navigating the online environment.

What is media and information literacy?

Media and information literacy (MIL) is defined by UNESCO as “an interrelated set of competencies that help people to maximise advantages and minimize harms in the new information, digital and communication landscapes”.

Previously, media literacy (ML) and information literacy (IL) have been treated as distinct concepts, with ML focusing specifically on media engagement, and IL referring in a broader sense to information skills such as search, discovery, access, analysis, and management.

In the early 2000s, UNESCO united the concepts under the umbrella term of media and information literacy (MIL), and while there is still some debate among ML and IL experts about whether this is the best approach, it is generally accepted that there is value in grouping them together to develop holistic policies and initiatives.

The UK’s Media and Information Literacy Alliance (MILA) have chosen also to treat the two concepts as one. They define MIL as “the ability to engage fully with media and information in people’s connected daily lives…engaging with media and information safely and healthily, critically and actively, with positive social consequences”.

Key MIL competencies include the skills and abilities to find, critically evaluate, interpret, manage, create, communicate, store, and share media and information, both online and offline.

Why is it important?

With rapid technological developments in recent decades and the exponential growth of media and information online, it is vital that people are equipped to navigate this increasingly complex landscape. MIL is therefore becoming a growing priority for key stakeholders including librarians, teachers, policymakers, media professionals, and youth organisations.

UNESCO estimates that 60% of the global population are internet users, and as this number grows and social media becomes an increasingly powerful tool, it is vital that people across the world can recognise potentially harmful content and prevent its spread.

MILA and UNESCO have highlighted concerns about the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories around Covid-19, the climate crisis and violent extremism, and have warned that the spread of such misinformation threatens to weaken social unity, undermine democracy, and erode trust in government and the media on a global scale.

Increased access to online environments has led to a blurring of the lines between consumers and producers of information. As it becomes easier to create and share content online, it becomes increasingly difficult to effectively evaluate such content, distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources, and form balanced and informed perspectives.

The skills associated with MIL are crucial to addressing these issues, and there is a clear case for MIL initiatives that help people to develop these skills as a part of their lifelong learning. Being able to understand where information comes from, identify ‘fake news’, recognise bias, think critically about different perspectives, and create and share media responsibly, can encourage greater civic engagement and empower individuals and communities to create positive change.

MIL initiatives and resources

UNESCO are leaders in the global MIL arena in terms of influencing policy and strategy. Their Media and Information Literacy Alliance (distinct from the UK’s MILA) was set up to facilitate strategic partnerships and networks among the global MIL community and is open to all organisations and individuals.

UNESCO have various MIL-related publications including their MIL Policy and Strategy Guidelines, the MIL Curriculum aimed at both educators and learners, the Global MIL Assessment Framework for assessing country readiness, and the MIL Cities framework aimed at key stakeholders in the development of MIL at the city level. The MIL CLICKS campaign has been designed to encourage individuals to critically evaluate information before sharing it online.

In the UK, MILA was launched in response to the government’s Online Media Literacy Strategy, which was published by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in July 2021. DCMS have since launched their Media Literacy Programme Fund which is intended to award grants for UK media literacy initiatives.

MILA have recently published the MILA Framework, a draft Information Literacy Impact Framework and a guide focused on disinformation around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They have also launched a ‘Disinformation Step by Step’ MOOC (massive open online course) for educators, librarians, teachers and journalists, and have previously delivered free webinars during 2021’s Global MIL Week.

Building a media and information literate Scotland

Last month, CILIP Scotland ran an afternoon of online sessions on Building a Media, Digital and Information Literate Scotland, as part of their series of online Autumn Gatherings.

The event included a presentation on UNESCO’s MIL initiatives by Sheila Webber, Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research at the University of Sheffield. Webber discussed the scope and impact of UNESCO’s work on MIL, noting the value of their publications and initiatives while highlighting the need for stronger partnerships and communication between stakeholders at the global level.

A panel discussion took place on issues around MIL for young people in Scotland and included a conversation about ‘Maddie is Online’ – a project aimed at developing MIL among pre-teen children through a video cartoon series addressing key challenges of the online environment.

The event also included a presentation on Ofcom’s ‘Making Sense of Media’ project, which involved in-depth research on the current state of media literacy in the UK and pilot initiatives promoting MIL among underserved communities.

A session delivered by Dr Ann Wales from the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre discussed the ‘Information for Wellbeing’ course which was recently developed with NHS Scotland and the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), to equip library staff with skills to help users find trusted health and wellbeing information. Dr Wales emphasised the importance of literacies in enabling engagement and influencing national policy change.

Final thoughts

There is a clear need for focused efforts to develop MIL and enable people to engage effectively with media and information. As demonstrated by the work of UNESCO and MILA, collaboration and strategic partnerships are key, and initiatives like Global MIL Week offer a valuable opportunity for the international and cross-sectoral communication needed to coordinate the global effort to ensure MIL for all.

Further reading: more about information, media and digital skills on the Knowledge Exchange blog:

Skilling up: the case for digital literacy

Social media: does it influence political participation?

Assessing information quality: sorting the wheat from the CRAAP

Spinout success: commercialising academic research

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Research and teaching in UK universities is widely recognised to be among the best in the world.  In fact, the University of Oxford has topped the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020 for the fourth year in a row.

However, in November last year, venture capital firm Octopus Ventures published a new measure of UK universities’ success – the Entrepreneurial Impact Ranking.

Instead of focusing on traditional measures of success, such as research, teaching and citation impact, Octopus Ventures’ new index measures UK universities’ effectiveness at translating this research into commercial success via the creation of “quality, investor-ready spinout companies”.

The results are a little surprising – with Queen’s University Belfast reaching the top spot, ahead of big players such as the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

In this blog post, we consider these findings in more detail, and discuss the potential to further capitalise on the potential of spinouts in the UK, and the key factors that underpin their success.

A brief history of spinouts

A university spinout has been defined by Octopus Ventures as “a registered company set up to exploit intellectual property (IP) that has originated from within a university”.

In other words, it is a company that has been established based on ideas derived from a university’s research.  Often, former or current researchers are directly involved in the management team, and start-up funding is provided by the university (or one of its connected venture funds).

UK universities have been allowed to commercialise the results of their research since the mid-1980s. Between 2003 and 2018, approximately 3000 IP-based spinouts were created by UK universities.

Since 2010, there has been a notable increase in investment into university spinouts – both in terms of the number of deals achieved and the amount of money invested in university spinouts, from both private and public investment sources.

High rates of success

There is good reason for this increased investment – the survival rates of spinouts are high compared to other types of start up enterprise.  Research published in 2018 by law firm Anderson Law found that nine out of ten spinouts survive beyond five years.  By way of comparison, only two out of ten new enterprises survive beyond five years in the wider start-up environment.

Indeed, many spinouts not only survive, but thrive.  The UK has produced a large number of very successful spinouts – for example, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a University of Oxford spin-out company that has gone on to reach a £1.5 billion valuation.  ARM Holdings is another example – a designer of smartphone chips, established by the University of Cambridge, and acquired by Japanese firm Softbank for £24 billion in 2018.

Unrealised opportunities

However, while the UK has seen a number of high profile spinout success stories, Octopus Ventures, argue that there is yet more untapped potential to be realised:

“The UK has produced a host of successful university spinouts, but there are many unrealised opportunities that have been left in labs or got lost on their funding journey. These could be worth trillions of pounds to the UK economy.”

This potential is perhaps best illustrated by looking at the unrivalled success of many universities in the United States.  Take, for example, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  MIT has been the genesis for around 26,000 spinout companies, with a combined annual company turnover of US$2 trillion.  This is a huge amount from one university – and is equivalent to around 65% of the UK’s entire annual GDP!  The resultant spinouts have also created in the region of 3.3 million jobs. MIT clearly illustrates the huge potential that exists to capitalise on universities’ research.

Index results

Back in the UK, this massive potential has yet to be realised.  Indeed, one of the key aims of the new Entrepreneurial Impact Ranking is to identify where this potential exists, and which universities are making notable progress towards capitalising on it.

The key data points included are:

  • total funding per university;
  • total spinouts created per university;
  • total disclosures per university;
  • total patents per university;
  • total sales from spinouts per university.

An interesting element of the index is that it is also adjusted to account for the total funding that a university receives.  This means that it is not dominated by Russell Group universities simply on the basis of them receiving the most funding.

Indeed, Queen’s University Belfast was ranked first – putting it ahead of both the University of Cambridge (2nd place) and the University of Oxford (9th place) in terms of its production of spinout companies and successful exits, relative to the total funding received.

Queen’s University Belfast, through QUBIS Ltd, the university’s commercialisation arm, has had a number of spinout successes, including Kainos, Andor Technology, and Fusion Antibodies, all of which have been listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In Scotland, the highest ranking university was the University of Dundee (6th), which has had a number of successful spinouts, including Platinum Informatics, which specialises in the provision of software to analyse ‘big data’.

What makes a successful spinout company?

As well as identifying the most effective universities in terms of spinouts, the Octopus Ventures report also looks at the shared success factors that have contributed to their effectiveness.

There are three key factors:

  • Funding – Access to early funding is essential to success. Universities that ranked highly in the index were ones that raised funds to help get ideas off the drawing board. As Simon King, a partner in Octopus Ventures states: “Universities that enable early-stage proof of concepts and prototyping by making early-stage funds available, either internally through their own funds or through collaborative schemes with other funds are more successful at creating spinouts.  That’s a key takeaway.”
  • Talent – the issue of talent is considered a ‘consistently challenging’ issue for spinouts.  There is a huge demand for the right skills, and spinouts are often viewed as being high-risk propositions compared to more established enterprises.  Other challenges include a lack of academics’ understanding of the business world, and limited incentives for them to engage in the commercial world in light of the pressure to ‘publish or perish’.
  • Collaboration – As well as university-industry collaboration, collaboration between different universities was a key factor in the creation of successful spinouts. Collaboration helps to increase both scale and capacity, whilst also helping to attract and retain top talent.

Future support for spinouts

Measuring the relative effectiveness of UK universities’ ability to commercialise their research provides a number of signposts for the future in regards to how best to support and further develop this potential.

This is increasingly important given the economic uncertainties surrounding Brexit and the availability of a number of European funding streams once the UK leaves the European Union.

The UK’s Industrial Strategy places a clear emphasis on academic entrepreneurialism as a driver of economic growth.  And in 2018, the UK Government launched the £100m Connecting Capability Fund to support university collaboration in research commercialisation.

Commercialising academic research is far more complex, risky and expensive than establishing a typical start-up.  But their potential contribution to the economy, and wider society, is huge.

Further reading: our blog posts on higher education

Follow us on Twitter to see what topics are interesting our research team.

Managing growth in historic towns

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canterbury cathedral

By Heather Cameron

Predominantly set within environmentally attractive surroundings, historic towns and cities have a strong sense of place, offer a good quality of life, are often prosperous and represent models of sustainable development.

Research shows that businesses based in older places are more productive than the average for all commercial businesses across the whole economy. Retail and leisure businesses often seek to cluster in historic areas of towns and cities, and historic buildings are particularly attractive to new business start-ups, especially in the creative and cultural sector. Well-maintained historic places also enhance cultural life and community resilience.

As a result, historic towns are much sought after places to live and work, which has contributed to unprecedented growth.

Growth pressures

While growth is seen as a good thing for the future of town centres, managing it effectively in these areas of historic importance is not without its challenges. Older townscapes and buildings are a valuable and irreplaceable community asset that need to be protected.

Growth in historic towns creates pressure for new housing and development, and the infrastructure that is needed alongside it. It can also lead to increased congestion and depletion of suburban quality through redevelopment and loss of garden space. The traditional infrastructure in these towns may not be able cope with the increased capacity resulting in demand for suitable adaptation.

Managing these growth pressures is a particular challenge for historic towns as they need to try and meet local development need while both conserving the identity and sense of place of the existing town and nurturing the creation of sustainable new communities within them.

The Historic Towns Forum has highlighted that “there are challenges of infrastructure, partnership working, working with major national developers, the tension between modernity and pastiche and how to learn from the past and the present when building at this scale.”

In addition, the main political priority across all areas is economic wellbeing, taking precedence over any heritage considerations. A report from Green Balance in 2014 found that this principle concern was interpreted differently from place to place, with some local councillors viewing heritage as beneficial to a town’s economic and social wellbeing, while others viewed it is a burden and drag on investment.

As the heritage of places can be a particular pull for tourism, not preserving them could lead to a loss in economic wellbeing. The importance of achieving the right balance between sustainable development and heritage conservation is a theme that has been consistently highlighted in the research.

Smarter growth

So how do such places manage growth while also safeguarding both the character of the towns themselves and the settings around them?

According to the Historic Towns Forum, key issues in effectively addressing growth pressures in historic towns include:

  • planning and process;
  • partnerships;
  • finance and economics;
  • climate change;
  • community benefits and community engagement;
  • design; and
  • learning from the past and present.

It has been argued that a strategic approach to growth needs to be taken, such as the approach taken in Cambridge, where the Cambridgeshire Quality Charter for Growth is being used to help steer the creation of high quality sustainable communities.

Partnerships involving a range of local stakeholders, encompassing a shared vision and cooperation are also important for effective growth. Where strategic resources are lacking, which is often the case in smaller towns, community engagement can be of particular importance, as shown in Cirencester.

Key principles of good design have been highlighted to include:

  • learning from the past, including study of appropriate models;
  • localising by understanding local conditions; and
  • transforming action by applying appropriate, robust advances.

The overarching message seems to be that ‘smarter growth’ is required.

Good practice

There are examples of good practice where historic towns are managing growth in a way that protects their heritage. Cambridge, as mentioned previously, is one example. Sutton is another, where the challenges of growth are being addressed through the use of a Heritage Action Zone. The aim here is to balance growth with the management of heritage assets, providing lessons for elsewhere.

It is also important to look further afield. The historic town of Amersfoort in the Netherlands has been presented as a good model for managing housing growth to achieve attractive new settlements and create balanced communities. It has been suggested that this smarter approach is something that historic towns in the UK can learn from.

Another good example is Freiburg in Germany. Although different in terms of development to Britain, some of the issues applicable to British towns and cities have been addressed – including how to attract families to live at higher densities close enough to city centres to avoid car dependency.

As Historic England states:

“Learning is central to sustaining the historic environment. It raises people’s awareness and understanding of their heritage, including the varied ways in which its values are perceived by different generations and communities. It encourages informed and active participation in caring for the historic environment.”

If you enjoyed this blog post, why not read are previous posts on the civic use of heritage assets and the value of preserving our built heritage.

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

‘Think globally, act locally’ – local job creation

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By Heather Cameron

The Local Government Association (LGA) last week called for greater devolution of employment and skills funding to councils and a ‘radical rethink’ of the way Jobcentre Plus works. Chairman of the LGA’s People and Places Board said:

“Job centres need to engage with more unemployed people for a start and then help more claimants move into sustainable employment. This is crucial to boosting local growth. Councils know best how to do this. We know our local economies, we know our local employers and we know our residents and we can bring local services together in a way central government will never be able to.”

Local solutions

Of course, local solutions for job creation and economic growth is not a new idea. Local development and job creation initiatives first emerged in the 1980s, in response to a ‘new phenomenon of high, persistent and concentrated unemployment’ that national policies seemed powerless to reverse on their own. Since then they have continued to spread and develop.

Although unemployment is at an 11-year low in the UK, according to recent research many countries, including the UK, are seeing widening gaps in the geographic distribution of skills and jobs. And the importance of local solutions has again been highlighted.

The OECD’s most recent edition of Job Creation and Local Economic Development argues that local development is a key tool for addressing the problem of such unequal distribution. Similarly, in its submission to last year’s Autumn Statement, the LGA argued that local government is central to the delivery of locally tailored solutions to national public policy challenges.

Boosting productivity growth, while ensuring growth delivers improved living standards and distributes the benefits of increased prosperity equally, are highlighted by the OECD as the twin challenges facing all policymakers. Underlined as a crucial but difficult task, it is argued that ‘actions originating at any single governance level or policy area will not be sufficient’.

Whole-of-government approach

The OECD report, therefore, examines how national and local actors can better work together to support economic development and job creation at the local level. In particular, it outlines what both national and local actors can do to improve the local implementation of vocational education and training (VET) and SME and entrepreneurship policies.

Among the recommendations for national actors include:

  • Design VET frameworks that allow local stakeholders to tailor training to local labour market needs while still maintaining a certain level of national consistency
  • Build the capacities needed to make VET systems more agile locally
  • Develop a strong national apprenticeship framework that builds a high quality system, includes strategically-designed incentives for employer participation, and allows for flexible delivery frameworks
  • Maximise the efficiency of SME and entrepreneurship policy delivery by allowing for local tailoring, co-locating services, using intermediary organisations to deliver programmes, and/or developing formal agreements for the division of competences and financing between governance levels
  • Develop national frameworks and strategies to support disadvantaged young people in entrepreneurship, and clearly assign responsibility for this policy portfolio to a single agency or ministry
  • Embed entrepreneurship into national education frameworks, while also providing integrated packages of entrepreneurship support in other settings to reach young people outside of the education system

Among the recommendations for local actors include:

  • Balance the need to meet pressing local labour market demands with ensuring that VET helps to move local economies to higher skilled and value-added products and services
  • Encourage VET teachers and trainers to maintain contact with local employers and industries to keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date
  • Boost employer engagement in apprenticeships
  • Tailor the delivery of apprenticeship programmes so that they work better for a broader range of employers, including SMEs, and disadvantaged populations
  • Forge connections across administrative borders in developing and co-ordinating entrepreneurship and SME policies
  • Work with organisations that have already established relationships with disadvantaged youth to maximise the reach of entrepreneurship programmes
  • To better reach disadvantaged youth, provide integrated packages of support, use hands-on learning methods, and involve entrepreneurs in programme delivery

Decentralisation?

The report concludes that local actors need both flexibility to tailor delivery of national policies to local conditions and the capacity to use this flexibility to ensure informed decision-making.

It is noted that this doesn’t necessarily mean political decentralisation, but rather ensuring the right tools are used to add local flexibility while maintaining national coherence.

If you found this article interesting, you may also like to read our previous blog on Local Enterprise Partnerships. 

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

 

Smart-eco cities: how technology is addressing sustainability challenges in the UK

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Looking down on densely packed buildings of New York

By Steven McGinty

As cities realise the need to improve sustainability, many are turning to innovative technologies to address challenges such as traffic congestion and air pollution. Here, the ‘smart agenda’, with its focus on technology and urban infrastructure, overlaps with the ‘sustainability agenda’ – usually associated with energy, waste management, and transport.

In 2015, an international research project – coordinated by the University of Exeter and involving teams from the UK, China, the Netherlands, France, and Germany – was launched to investigative how smart-eco initiatives can be used to promote the growth of the green economy. As part of this work, the report ‘Smart-eco cities in the UK: trends and city profiles 2016’ was published.

Below we’ve highlighted some interesting case studies from this report.

Glasgow

Glasgow’s smart city approach has been described as ‘opportunistic’ (as opposed to strategy-led) by the report’s authors. New initiatives are often linked to creative organisations/individuals and competition funding, such as Future City Glasgow, which was awarded £24 million by the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK).

Nonetheless, this has helped Glasgow become a smart city leader, not just in the UK, but globally.

Almost half of the £24 million Innovate UK funding was spent on the Operations Centre, located in Glasgow’s east end.  The new state-of-the-art facility integrates traffic and public safety management systems, and brings together public space CCTV, security for the city council’s museums and art galleries, traffic management and police intelligence. As well as helping the police and emergency services, the centre can prioritise buses through traffic (when there are delays) and has recently supported the Clean Glasgow initiative, a project to tackle local environmental issues, such as littering.

Intelligent street lighting was also a major part of Future City Glasgow. Three sections of the city have been fitted with new lighting: a walkway along the River Clyde; a partly pedestrianised section of Gordon Street; and Merchant City, a popular retail and leisure district. The new lighting includes built-in sensors which provide real-time data on sound levels, air quality, and pedestrian footfall. ‘Dynamic’ lights, which use motion sensors to vary lighting – increasing levels when pedestrians walk by – have also been introduced.

London

London’s smart city programme is linked to the challenges it faces as a leading global city. Its need for continuous growth and remaining competitive has to be balanced with providing infrastructure, services, and effective governance.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) is behind both the strategy, through the Smart London Board, and the practical delivery of various activities. Much of their work focuses on encouraging collaboration between business, the technology sector, and the residents of London. For example, the London Datastore, which includes over 650 governmental (and some non-governmental) data sets, plays an important role in ensuring the city’s data is freely available to all. Visitors can view a wide variety of statistics and data graphics, on areas such as recycling rates, numbers of bicycles hired, and carbon dioxide emission levels by sector.

In 2014, the Smart London District Network was established to explore how technology could be used in four regeneration projects: Croydon; Elephant & Castle; Imperial West; and the London Olympic Park. To support this, the Institute for Sustainability was commissioned to run a competition asking technology innovators to pitch innovative ideas for these projects. Winners of this competition included the company Stickyworld, who created an online platform which supports stakeholder engagement through a virtual environment, and Placemeter, who developed an intelligent online platform which analyses the data taken from video feeds and provides predictive insights.

Manchester

Recently, the City of Manchester Council consolidated their smart city initiatives into the Smarter City Programme. The Smart-eco cities report explains that the programme draws on the city’s 2012 submission to the ‘Future Cities Demonstrator’ competition, focusing on the development of Manchester’s Oxford Road ‘Corridor’ around five main themes:

  • enhanced low carbon mobility
  • clean energy generation and distribution
  • more efficient buildings
  • integrated logistics and resource management
  • community and citizen engagement

Manchester’s approach to becoming a smarter city involves a wide range of partners. For instance, Triangulum is a €25m European Commission project involving Manchester and two other cities (Eindhoven and Stavanger) to transform urban areas into ‘smart quarters’.

In Manchester, the council-led project will integrate mobility, energy, and informations and communications technology (ICT) systems into the infrastructure along the Corridor. It will introduce a range of technologies into assets such as the University of Manchester Electrical Grid, with the aim of showing their potential for supplying, storing and using energy more effectively in urban environments. Data visualisation techniques, based on the use of real-time data, will also be developed.

In 2016, Manchester launched CityVerve, a £10 million collaborative project to demonstrate internet of things technologies. The project will involve several smart city initiatives, including:

  • talkative bus stops, which use digital signage and sensors, to provide information to passengers and provide data to bus operators on the numbers waiting for buses
  • air quality sensors in the street furniture
  • ‘Community Wellness’ sensors in parks, along school and commuter routes, to encourage exercise
  • a ‘biometric sensor network’, to help people manage their chronic respiratory conditions

Final thoughts

There is great excitement about the potential for smart city technologies. However, as is highlighted by the smart-eco cities report, many are limited in scale, short term, and based on competition funding. If we want to create sustainable cities, which meets challenges of the future, greater investment will be needed from both public and private sector.

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 smart cities articles. 

Local Enterprise Partnerships – the story so far

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Business strategyBy Heather Cameron

Following the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies in 2010, 39 local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) were established in England by 2012. Each was designed to represent a functional economic area and steer growth strategically in local communities. These business-led partnerships between the private sector and local authorities are central to government plans for local economic growth.

According to a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO), the role and remit of LEPs has expanded both significantly and rapidly but there are concerns over whether they have the capacity and capability to deliver.

Rapid growth

Since their inception, LEPs have rapidly developed from new start-up organisations to bidders and delivery managers for substantial amounts of national and European funding initiatives to strategic leaders of their local economies.

Between 2010 and 2015 total central government funding directed through LEPs was approximately £1.5 billion. Through the Local Growth Fund, £12 billion will be available from 2015-16 to 2020-21. Growth Deals were agreed with each of the 39 LEPs in 2014, through which £6.3 billion of the Local Growth Fund was allocated. With a further £1 billion allocated in January 2015, the total to date is £7.3 billion. LEPs estimate that the Growth Deals combined will create up to 419,500 jobs and 224,300 housing units.

On the whole, LEPs have been perceived positively and are well established as the main agencies for promoting local growth.

Development has been anything but uniform, however, with a varied pace of evolution. Considering the differing levels of size, urbanisation, population, and existing infrastructure within the LEPs, this is no surprise.

The most advanced LEPs have been identified as those with a history of collaborative working. Greater Manchester leads the way, having already been given powers over skills, welfare and transport, and to be given new powers over the criminal justice system as announced in the 2016 Budget. Greater Manchester has been working in partnership since the 1980s through its local government association, and formally through its Combined Authority since 2011.

And according to a recent Localis report, including London, there are at least a third of LEPs based in and around urban areas which are or could soon be in a position to take on greater powers, with 2017/18 a feasible timeline for them to assume greater powers.

Uncertainty

Despite their rapid development and increased responsibility for substantial amounts of government funding, concerns have been raised over LEPs’ power, resources and accountability.

The NAO report found that only 5% of LEPs agreed that resources available to them are enough to meet government expectations. Additionally, 69% of LEPs reported that they did not have sufficient staff and 28% did not think that they had sufficiently skilled staff.

A survey by the Federation of Small Businesses in 2014 found that: there is a disparity in the levels of funding and capacity across LEPs; a lack of clarity on the remit, purpose and function of LEPs from government has resulted in widespread misunderstanding and friction in practice; and inconsistencies in performance monitoring across LEPs is hampering accountability to local stakeholders and hindering assessment of LEP performance nationally.

Further recent analysis argues that their role and influence are being compromised by a fragmented and changing landscape of economic development governance and the absence of any longer term vision and plan for their evolution.

Given this lack of long term vision and strategy, the fundamental tensions yet to be resolved and their institutional shortfalls and limitations in authority, accountability, capability and resources, the analysis concludes that many LEPs will struggle to exercise substantive influence on economic development at the local level.

Indeed, LEPs reported to the NAO that they were uncertain about their place in the wider devolved landscape. LEPs were also concerned that the government had not made clear their role in economic planning and development as devolution progresses.

Further concerns were raised over funding in terms of pressure to spend their allocation within the year at the risk of not receiving future funding, which could potentially lead to LEPs not funding projects most suited to long-term economic development. And the sustainability of reliance on local authority support at a time of reduced local government funding was another worry.

Future direction

Going forward, the NAO report recommends that the government:

  • clarifies how LEPs fit with other bodies to which it is devolving power and spending
  • distributes Local Growth Funding to LEPs in a form that will give them medium to long-term funding flexibility, subject to performance, to reduce risk of funds being spent on projects that LEPs do not regard as offering the best value for money
  • sets out specific quantifiable objectives and performance indicators for the success of Growth Deals
  • ensures that there is sufficient local capacity within LEPs to deliver Growth Deals by taking a more explicit and consistent account of the financial sustainability of local authority partners
  • uses its approach to monitoring Growth Deals as an opportunity to standardise output metrics for future local growth initiatives, allowing for comparative performance assessment and reducing reporting burdens
  • tests the implementation of local assurance frameworks before confirming future funding allocations, and works with LEPs to ensure that the required standards of governance and transparency are being met.

Only time will tell whether the government expectation of LEPs to deliver Growth Deals effectively and sustainably will become a reality.

If you liked this blog post, you might also want to read our previous post on innovation districts and sustainable growth

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

Innovation districts – the way forward for sustainable growth?

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By Heather Cameron

“Innovation is the lifeblood of any society or any economy” Julian Beer, Birmingham City University

Innovation districts, first coined by Bruce Katz and colleagues at the Brookings Institute in the US, are a recent trend in urban planning that is on the rise across the globe.

They represent a move away from the traditional corporate campuses, socially isolated in out-of-town sites, consisting of clusters of innovative research facilities in working areas that are also liveable, accessible by foot or by bike, and have good transport links.

The move towards these innovation hubs reflects the growing importance of the geography of innovation to urban areas.

Driving economic growth and regeneration

According to the judges and partners of the inaugural Lambert Smith Hampton Enterprise Award, consisting of leading figures from the property industry, innovation districts can drive economic growth and ensure the Northern Powerhouse and UK-wide devolution are successful.

The Sheffield City Region’s Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District (AMID) Partnership was selected as the winner of the £15,000 Award, the proposals of which were highlighted as an example of how developing industry clusters can deliver economic growth, employment and community regeneration. They also called for the AMID Partnership to be considered as a model for regional development.

The AMID Partnership consists of The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Harworth Estates, Sheffield Business Park, Sheffield City Council and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.

This integrated approach utilises newly devolved powers and funding for the greatest economic and social impact.

The role of The University of Sheffield and its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) in driving productivity improvements and innovation has been recognised in three independent reports.

One of the reports, Making it: the advanced manufacturing economy in Sheffield and Rotherham, notes that “R&D and industry-led innovation in Sheffield-Rotherham has been driven by the AMRC and led by the University of Sheffield, a UK leader in advanced manufacturing and research.”

Another notable innovation district in the UK is Corridor Manchester. Developed over the past 10 years, it is a partnership between the city council, local universities and regional hospitals that supports nearly 12% of the city’s workforce and generates £3bn GVA per annum. The recently opened £61m National Graphene Institute, which is to explore new commercial uses for graphene technology, has been described as “the perfect example of innovation-district potential.”

Growth in collaboration

Such university-industry partnerships are becoming increasingly common as a way for higher education institutions (HEIs) to enhance their research, create new research and development opportunities and increase revenues.

Robert Tijssen, chair of science and innovation studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, has stated that “university-industry connectivity is now the third mission of a university, next to teaching and training and research.”

The most recent Higher education – business and community interaction survey shows a continuing increase in the exchange of knowledge between UK HEIs and the public, private and third sectors.  Between 2012-13 and 2013-2014 these interactions increased in volume by 10.1%, the value of which was £300 million – increasing from £3.6 billion to £3.9 billion.

At a time of reduced government funding, it should be no surprise that such collaboration is continuing to increase.

A recent Universities UK report highlighting the extensive economic value of universities states that they have an important part in supporting businesses to drive product, process and service innovation.  And in terms of policy implications, it argues that:

“any policy aiming to promote the long-term economic success of the UK needs to have universities at its heart, recognising the breadth, complexity and significance of their contribution and the need for stable, continued support to enable further impact.”

Barriers to innovation

Despite the wide recognition of the value of such partnerships, it has been argued that the UK’s fiscal policy of austerity acts as a barrier to industry innovation.

According to Simon Marginson, professor of international higher education at the UCL Institute for Education:

“As long as the rewards for investment in financial assets are higher than the rewards for investment in knowledge-intensive industry innovation, the latter will be neglected… This is a serious problem in the UK economy, where finance generating finance often seems to be the main game.”

Way forward

Nevertheless, it would seem likely that the rise in innovation districts will continue due to the organic nature of their growth, as highlighted by Katz and colleagues. Economic and demographic forces will continue to change the way people live and work.

Brookings has called for local decision-makers, global companies and financial institutions, and government to ‘unleash’, ‘embrace’, ‘support and accelerate’ innovation districts. The result: “a step toward building a stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive economy.”

If you liked this blog post, you might also want to read our previous post on science and innovation

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

Social prescribing – just what the doctor ordered?

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By Heather Cameron

It is widely acknowledged that wider social, economic and environmental factors have a significant influence on health and wellbeing. According to recent research only 20% of health outcomes are attributable to clinical care and the quality of care while socioeconomic factors account for 40%.

With increasing pressures on GPs and lengthy waiting times a real issue for many, particularly those with mental health conditions, social prescribing could represent a real way forward.

The government clearly recognised the importance of social prescribing in its new deal for GPs announced earlier this year, which made a commitment to make social prescribing a normal part of the job.

In response to a recent Ask-a-Researcher request for information on different approaches in social prescribing and evidence of what works in the UK, it was interesting to find that despite the recognition of potential value, there has been little evaluation of social prescribing schemes to date.

Much of the material found focused on specific interventions and small-scale pilots and discussion around implementation. A new review of community referral schemes published by University College London (UCL) is therefore a welcome addition to the evidence base as it provides definitions, models and notable examples of social prescribing schemes and assesses the means by which and the extent to which these schemes have been evaluated.

So what is social prescribing?

Social prescribing means linking patients with non-medical treatment, whether it is social or physical, within their community.

A number of schemes already exist and have included a variety of prescribed activities such as arts and creative activities, physical activity, learning and volunteering opportunities, self-care and support with finance, benefits, housing and employment.

Often these schemes are delivered by voluntary, community and faith sector organisations with detailed knowledge of local communities and how best to meet the needs of certain groups.

Social and economic benefits

Despite a lack of robust evidence, our investigation uncovered a number of documents looking at the social prescribing model and the outcomes it can lead to. Positive outcomes repeatedly highlighted include:

  • improved health and wellbeing;
  • reduced demand on hospital resources;
  • cost savings; and
  • reduced social isolation.

According to the UCL report, the benefits have been particularly pronounced for marginalised groups such as mental health service-users and older adults at risk of social isolation.

A recent evaluation of the social and economic impact of the Rotherham Social Prescribing Pilot found that after 3-4 months, 83% of patients had experienced positive change in at least one outcome area. These outcomes included improved mental and physical health, feeling less lonely and socially isolated, becoming more independent, and accessing a wider range of welfare benefit entitlements.

The evaluation also reported that there were reductions in patients’ use of hospital services, including reductions of up to a fifth in the number of outpatient stays, accident and emergency attendances and outpatient appointments. The return on investment for the NHS was 50 pence for each pound invested.

Similarly, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has recently argued that empowering patients improves their health outcomes and could save money by supporting them to manage their condition themselves.

IPPR suggests that if empowering care models such as social prescribing were adopted much more widely throughout the NHS we would have a system that focused on the social determinants of health not just the symptoms, providing people with personalised and integrated care, that focused on capabilities not just needs, and that strengthened people’s relationships with one another.

Partnership working

With a continued policy focus on integrated services and increased personalisation, social prescribing would seem to make sense. In addition to providing a means to alternative support, it could also be instrumental in strengthening community-professional partnerships and cross-collaboration among health, social and other services.

The New Local Government Network (NLGN) recently examined good practice in collaboration between local authorities, housing associations and the health sector, with Doncaster Social Prescribing highlighted as an example of successful partnership working. Of the 200 referrals made through this project, only 3 were known to local authority and health and wellbeing officers, showing that the work of social prescribing identified individuals who had otherwise slipped through the net.

And with the prospect of an ageing population and the health challenges this brings, a growing number of people could benefit from community-based support.

As Chair of Arts Council England, Sir Peter Bazalgette, notes “social prescribing is an idea whose time has come”.

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

Further reading: if you liked this blog post, you might also want to read Heather’s earlier post on the health and wellbeing benefits of investing in public art.

What technology brings to health and social care: a case study of Calderdale and Idox

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By Steven McGinty

In the second of our articles on health and social care and technology, we‘re going to look at the advantages of using technology, as well as a case study of an innovative partnership between Calderdale Council and Idox.

The ‘Digital working, learning and information sharing’ strategy, developed in partnership with the adult social care sector, identifies three areas where technology would bring a number of benefits:

  • working directly with those who need care and their carers;
  • supporting the learning and professional development of staff;
  • organisational business support and information management systems.

The use of electronic notes, for instance, would be a simple step that would have a significant impact on homecare workers (highlighted in section 5 of the Burstow Commission report on the future of the home care workforce).  At the moment, care workers usually make handwritten notes and leave them in a book in someone’s home.  However, if care workers moved from handwritten notes to electronic notes, information could be shared more easily. This would mean that care managers and families would be able to monitor an individual’s care and conditions remotely.

Organisations have also seen the advantage of incorporating e-learning into staff development.  The Skills for Care ‘Digital capabilities in social care’ report found that 95% of organisations used e-learning courses to support staff development, particularly in administration-related areas, such as health and safety and fire training. For instance, instead of sending staff on full day training sessions, e-learning courses can be completed by staff in an hour, offering greater efficiency and flexibility.

However, the report also highlighted that social care related e-learning courses, which looked at issues such as dignity and respect, were of ‘variable quality’ and not able to compete with the experience of face-to-face and group learning. Therefore, it’s possible that an opportunity is being missed by education and training providers, as technology should be able to provide better solutions than the simple tick box exercises described in the report.

Interestingly, the report also suggests this might not be too far off, as one of the organisations revealed that they were looking at more interactive options and were currently working on a research project with a university in Greece, which focused on the idea of ‘gamification’.

One local authority that’s certainly tried to capitalise on the benefits of technology is Calderdale Council. The council has developed an innovative case management tool to support their day-to-day work, in areas such as child protection, looked after children, and fostering and adopting. Parveen Akhtar, Early Intervention Service Manager, at Calderdale Council explains that:

“The Child Social Care solution was created in partnership with schools, health and police. Providing an intuitive system to meet the requirements of front line social care practitioners, it enhances our ability to provide better services to families within our community.”

The Child Social Care solution creates a single view of a child through combining information from several sources into one record. This means that practitioners are able to create, access and share information easily and securely, supporting informed decisions and putting in place appropriate support for children and their families.

The system has a number of benefits and features, including:

  • improving multi-agency communication and response;
  • reducing the amount of time taken by practitioners to locate another agency involved in a child’s case;
  • enabling practitioners to access information remotely;
  • offering comprehensive performance and reporting tools for providing vital statistics;
  • providing the ability to monitor and track the progress that children and families are making.

Calderdale have teamed up with Idox, a specialist in providing technology, content and funding solutions to government, and are now offering their system to other local authorities. The partnership has already proven to be successful, with Calderdale and Idox providing their solution to councils in the Isles of Scilly and Leeds.

Over the coming years, health and social care will be facing ever greater demands with tighter budgets. For this reason, technology is going to be essential to support better outcomes and more efficient services.  It is therefore important that a strategic approach is taken concerning information technology, and that organisations look at its long term benefits, rather than the short term savings from cuts to investment.

The first article on health and social care and technology, “What’s preventing health and social care from going digital?”, can be found here.

Further reading:

 

The renaissance of Building Control

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Post–recession, the building industry has begun a return to rapid growth against a background of changes in building regulations, continuing technical innovation, and raised standards and expectations for developers. Building Control (the process of ensuring that buildings are safe, healthy and efficient to meet the standards set by the building regulations) is a key component in this resurgence and it’s no surprise that the Local Authority Building Control technical meeting at Nottingham University scheduled for 23 and 24 March has a packed programme and is entirely sold out.

With over 3,000 professionals working in the field and faced with competition from private service providers, Local Authorities are coming together to make infrastructure investments that will improve services and ultimately reduce costs.  A good example is the North Yorkshire Building Control Partnership formed in 2001 and now grown to provide services for five authorities.  Latest figures from NYBCP show savings of over £1m annually through this scalable and flexible shared-service platform.

The programme behind this required vision and commitment to deliver and involved hosting arrangements for a new single system, local network and IT services with support, and data migration from five legacy systems.  A case study published by NYBCP describes the programme in detail.

And the key metrics:

  • £1M reduction in salary costs
  • 55% of all applications are born digital or received digitally
  • Major reduction in processing costs
  • Remote access and remote working for stakeholders and officers
  • Improved customer service delivery as administrators are able to validate and process applications within 3 – 5 minutes

A last word to Les Chapman, NYBCP Head of Building Control, who commented, “By adopting a no compromise approach and having clear goals which have been carefully monitored I am confident that we have improved our service, significantly reduced our costs and we have de-risked the provision and maintenance of our IT systems.”

References

Local Authority Building Control

NYBCP case study

Gloucester City and Stroud DC business case for Building Control shared-service