Research Online: an expert source of information on the Scottish labour market

Posted on May 30, 2018 by morwenj

One of the Knowledge Exchange’s key aims is to support the use of evidence and research in public policy and practice. Our Information Service database has been recognised by the Alliance for Useful Evidence in its Evidence Ecosystem which illustrated the diversity of organisations involved in supporting evidence use in the government and public sector. But we also support two other sector-specific research portals – Research Online and Evaluations Online.

Here we introduce Research Online, which first launched over 14 years ago and which we have worked with Skills Development Scotland to develop and update ever since.

Scottish labour market intelligence

Research Online is Scotland’s labour market hub. The portal provides an authoritative source of labour market research and analysis relevant to Scotland and supports evidence-based policy making in the Scottish labour market.

Before Research Online was created, research suggested that although useful labour market research and analysis was undertaken within Scotland by a large range of organisations, there was no single dissemination source.

Therefore, a requirement existed for a portal that clearly identified current labour market intelligence (LMI), provided a common understanding of current gaps and provision in areas including labour supply and skills, and focused action to ensure LMI met Scottish user needs.

Research Online was conceived to improve access to this wealth of intelligence.

The most comprehensive collection of labour market intelligence

The portal now contains thousands of documents on a range of labour market topics including:

Employment;
Skills and training;
Unemployment;
Entrepreneurship;
Vocational education and training;
Workforce development; and
Equal opportunities.

The material available on the portal includes research, policy, analysis, discussion and sectoral and geographic profiles. Our team sources the latest research and policy documents from a wide range of sources, including academic journals, government departments and agencies, labour market research centres and material sent in directly by key organisations in Scotland and the wider UK. The available material includes grey literature, government policy and up-to-date academic research.

Research Online also incorporates a current awareness service that alerts registered users to new material on a fortnightly basis. It also has integrated reading list functionality.

Free to access

Research Online can be accessed by anyone, free of charge. You can browse the material here without registering, as well as create reading lists to be accessed at a later date or shared with colleagues.

If you would like to sign-up for a range of current awareness alerts that keep you up to date on a variety of labour market topics, covering both Scotland and the wider UK, you can do so here.

Our shared vision is for Research Online to be recognised as a key dissemination mechanism by Scotland’s producers of labour market intelligence and to be at the centre of a community of practice for labour market researchers, practitioners and policy-makers.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

The Idox Information Service database: factual, accessible and essential

Posted on April 30, 2018 by jamescarson2014

At a time when finding up-to-date and accurate information has never been more important, organisations and individuals in the public, private and third sectors need to know where the best resources are.

All members of the Idox Information Service have access to the Idox database, which contains thousands of reports and journal articles on public and social policy.

The subjects range from planning and infrastructure to housing, health, education and culture. Each entry provides full bibliographic details, as well as an abstract summarising the key information contained in the original item.

Keywords and subject headings are allocated to each record, making it more likely to appear when searching for relevant items. Often, the abstract is enough to provide a searcher with the information they need. But if the full document is required, this is available, either online or by download.

The database is a highly respected library of high quality information, and brings together a wealth of articles and reports that are not available in a single source elsewhere.

To provide a flavour of what the database contains, here’s just a selection of the hundreds of items that have been added since the beginning of 2018.

End rough sleeping: what works
Published by Crisis

This report explores effective ways of tackling rough sleeping, drawing on a review of international evidence. The authors discuss key findings, impacts and barriers in relation to nine key interventions: hostels and shelters; Housing First; Common Ground; social impact bonds; residential communities; ‘no second night out’; reconnection; personalised budgets; and street outreach services. The report also highlights opportunities to improve the evidence base.

Fostering (House of Commons Education Committee report)
Published by The Stationery Office

In 2017, the Commons Education Committee conducted an enquiry into the foster care of children in England. The resulting report focuses on valuing young people and foster carers. As well as looking at the support for young people, including placements, engagement and transition to adulthood, the report considers the working conditions of foster carers, including financial support, employment status and training. The report concludes that foster care provides an invaluable service to society, but notes that England’s foster care system is under pressure. The Committee makes several recommendations for government, including the establishment of a national college for foster carers.

Still planning for the wrong future?
Published in Town and Country Planning, Vol 86 No 12 Dec 2017

Inactivity is one of the main factors impacting on health, and this article considers how planning may be a cause of, and a solution to, inactivity. The article discusses the health consequences of mass motoring in urban areas and the need to develop healthy communities through planning. The author calls for planning to develop more walkable, cyclable and public transport-based places, and recommends that places should be designed to make active and public transport more convenient than driving in order to increase physical activity and improve health.

Preparing for Brexit
Published by the Greater London Authority (GLA)

Brexit is, of course, a significant issue, and is likely to affect many different areas of public policy, from trade and the economy to public spending and devolution. The Idox database is collecting a growing library of reports and articles covering this important topic. This GLA report, for example, considers different scenarios to model five possible outcomes for the UK and London of the UK leaving the European Union (EU) Customs Union and Single Market. The report draws on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the macro-sectoral model, E3ME, and suggests that the more severe the type of Brexit, the greater the negative impact will be on London and the UK. It predicts that Brexit will not only reduce the size of the UK economy, but also put it on a slower long-term growth trajectory.

Work harder (or else)
Published in People Management, Mar 2018

Poor productivity is one of the most acute problems affecting the UK economy. This article suggests that the key to improving productivity lies with developing a happy, engaged and well-motivated workforce. And to reinforce the argument, the author provides evidence from a crystal glass products company in Cumbria. The article explains that since the company introduced a collective bonus for all employees based on turnover and margin improvement, turnover has almost doubled and gross margins have more than tripled. The article attributes this success to the company’s staff working together to make small, continuous improvements.

Plastic not so fantastic
Published in Envirotec Mar/Apr 2018
Increasing concerns about the scale of plastic waste, particularly in the world’s oceans, has pushed this issue to the top of the political agenda. This article reviews government and industry responses to the problem, including the benefits and drawbacks of deposit return schemes.

These are just a few examples, but there are many more reports and articles in the Idox database. For most of these items, full text access is also available, either via website links or through our document supply service.

Access to the Idox database is just one of the services provided to members of the Idox Information Service. Other benefits of membership include our enquiries service, a weekly current awareness bulletin and fortnightly topic updates.

If you would like to know more about the benefits of Idox Information Service membership, please get in touch with our customer development team today.

You can read more about the Idox Information Service in these recent blog posts:

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

Old problems, old solutions? Why New Towns are back in the spotlight

Posted on January 31, 2018 by morwenj

New housing development, Somerset. Image: Stevekelretsu (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Theresa May, speaking in November 2017 said it was her ‘personal mission’ to solve England’s housing crisis, by ensuring that more homes get built, more quickly. The renaming of the Department for Communities and Local Government to become the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has followed, reflecting a “renewed focus to deliver more homes”. But the UK’s housing crisis is likely to remain a challenge where rhetoric is far easier than delivering actual change.

Housing policy priorities

Last autumn’s Budget included measures on stamp duty for first-time buyers, over £15 billion of additional financial support for housebuilding over the next five years, and planning reforms to ensure more land is available for housing. The aim is that “by the mid-2020s there should be an average of 300,000 homes being built every year” – the biggest annual increase in housing supply since the 1970s.

Industry commentators were lukewarm in their assessment of the announcements, however. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) summed up the measures as “too small to make a real dent in the challenge we face”. Meanwhile the Chartered Institute of Housing said that “it’s crucial the homes built are homes that people can afford” and called for more to be done to support the social housing sector. The Home Builders Federation said that “further policy interventions will be required over the coming years” if the “ambitious” target of 300,000 new homes is to be achieved, and they highlighted SME builders, retirement providers and the private rented /social sector as key.

The potential of New Towns

It is within this context that, in January 2018, a new All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) was officially launched which aims to highlight the growth opportunities, as well as the challenges, in Britain’s post-war new towns. The APPG is a cross-party group, supported by the Town and Country Planning Association.

Speaking at the launch event, Sajid Javid (Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government) highlighted that “it’s this issue of place, how to build not just more homes, but strong communities, that goes to the heart of the challenge we face as a country.”

The initial objectives of the APPG are to:

Change attitudes to New Towns and gain increased recognition for them.
Make the case for investment in the regeneration and renewal of New Town infrastructure and other issues that specifically apply to New Towns.
Positively help shape future government policy.

It is expected that the new APPG will consider the successes and failures of existing new towns in order to learn from past mistakes and to help shape future government policy.

Back to the future

In light of the renewed government interest in the New Towns model and New Town Development Corporations, it is worth exploring how the original New Towns were planned and delivered, and the personal experiences and reflections of those involved.

And that’s precisely what we do in our publication “Planning the New Towns – In Their Own Words” which makes publicly available, five interviews carried out in the 1980s and 1990s with those directly involved. Drawing on original archive interview material, the report offers an intriguing insight into the challenges they faced in creating communities from scratch. It also represents a historical narrative of the radical spirit that inspired those who built the New Towns.

The first-hand accounts focus on five major figures involved in creating the UK’s New Towns: Lord Campbell of Eskan; Walter Bor, CBE; Professor Derek Walker; Sir George Grenfell-Baines; and Sir David Gosling. As well as being the driving force behind specific New Town schemes, many of these individuals became major figures in the development of late 20th century architecture and town planning in the UK.

As they reflect on their experience we can sense pride, as well as a touch of bemusement at the scale of the programme that they were part of delivering. There are also mixed emotions in terms of the legacy they created and the long-term prospects for the New Towns.

Lord Campbell of Eskan –“I was really astonished how fortunate we were that we weren’t lynched in the streets with the appalling upheaval that it meant.”
Walter Bor, CBE – “Cities must absorb change, live with it, rather than prohibit it.”
Professor Derek Walker – “I am optimistic that mediocrity is not an inherent British trait.”
Sir George Grenfell-Baines –“One of the aspects which makes the British New Town Movement unique is the public money that was actually put into it.”
Sir David Gosling –“The corporate spirit of the team was legendary and it was probably its interdisciplinary structure which assisted in its radical thinking.”

The 33 New Towns planned since 1946 represent the most sustained programme of new town development undertaken anywhere in the world. Today, they are home to over three million people. As the UK continues to struggle with balancing housing supply and demand against environmental, infrastructure and market concerns, it is important to recognise the vision and skills which the planning profession can bring to place-making.

The report “Planning the New Towns – In Their Own Words” draws on interview material collected for the New Towns Record. This archive resource brought together primary and secondary research materials on the UK New Towns programme. Created in the early-1990s, it included in-depth interviews with over 80 key practitioners and academics.

Thirty-two New Towns were designated in the United Kingdom between 1946 and 1970 (plus the later abandoned Stonehouse). Of these 32 New Towns, 21 were in England, two in Wales, five in Scotland and four in Northern Ireland.

Why not read our other recent articles on planning?

Evaluations Online: evaluating economic development activity in Scotland

Posted on March 10, 2017 by staceydingwall

by Stacey Dingwall

Recently we profiled Research Online, one of the two research portals managed by the Knowledge Exchange team. In this blog, we focus on Evaluations Online.

Economic development activity in Scotland

Evaluations Online is a public portal providing access to a collection of evaluation and economic development research reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise. Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s main economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government.

Idox won the contract to deliver Evaluations Online in 2007. The team developed a site which utilises a publishing platform designed specifically to deal with research material. Users can easily navigate to and assess the relevance of material thanks to specially-written abstracts and structured search functions based on a bespoke classification and record structure.

The site now contains over 500 evaluation and research reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise, dealing with different aspects of economic development activity such as business support, investment, sector growth and improving skills. All of the reports are publicly accessible and free to access.

In 2011, the team won a further contract to refresh and improve the site, focusing on how the site could be refined to better meet the needs of key user groups including economic development policy-makers and practitioners across Scotland. In the last quarter of 2016, the reports hosted on the site were accessed over 30,000 times.

The importance of evaluation

One of the key reports hosted on Evaluation Online is the annual review of the risk capital market in Scotland. Scottish Enterprise commissions the report annually in order to consider the scale of new investment flows. The findings are also used to inform the nature of Scottish Enterprise interventions in the Scottish early stage risk capital market, such as the Scottish Co-Investment Fund and Scottish Venture Fund.

Scottish Enterprise commissions evaluations of projects and programmes each year in order to identify their contribution towards economic growth in Scotland, and particularly in terms of their impact on gross value added (GVA) and employment. As the findings of the evaluations inform decisions about public spending, it’s important that all of the appraisal and evaluation work is of a high technical standard.

We’ve highlighted the importance of evidence and evaluation on the blog several times before. It’s worth repeating that repositories of evidence can help bring about better policy in a number of ways:

improve accountability by making it easier for people to scrutinise the activities and spending of public sector organisations – this helps organisations meet Freedom of Information responsibilities;
improve the visibility and therefore the impact of evidence;
help identify gaps in evidence by making it easier to compare research findings; and
increase our understanding of what works (‘good practice’), not only in the activities covered, but also in evaluation and research methods.

We’re proud to support Scottish Enterprise in the dissemination of their evaluation and research output, through a portal which they believe increases the return on these activities.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

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

Posted on February 3, 2017 by morwenj

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:

Public 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.

Research Online: Scotland’s labour market hub

Posted on January 16, 2017 by staceydingwall

by Stacey Dingwall

As well as the Idox Information Service, the Knowledge Exchange Team manages two other research portals – Research Online and Evaluations Online.

This blog focuses on Research Online, which we developed over 13 years ago and have worked with Skills Development Scotland to maintain and update ever since.

Scottish labour market intelligence

Research Online was conceived to improve access to this wealth of intelligence.

The most comprehensive collection of labour market intelligence

The portal now contains thousands of documents on a range of labour market topics including:

Employment;
Skills and training;
Unemployment;
Entrepreneurship;
Vocational education and training;
Workforce development; and
Equal opportunities.

Research Online also incorporates a current awareness service that alerts registered users to new material on a fortnightly basis. It also has integrated reading list functionality.

Free to access

If you would like to sign-up for a range of current awareness alerts that keep you up to date on a variety of labour market topics, covering both Scotland and the wider UK, you can do so here.

You can find out more about the projects The Knowledge Exchange team has been involved in, and the consultancy services we offer, here.

Celebrating a different kind of library: the Idox Information Service

Posted on February 6, 2015 by lauracdobie

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 work

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Travel planning for greener, cleaner journeys

Posted on July 2, 2014 by jamescarson2014

Our latest “In Focus” briefing looks at travel planning. You can download the briefing for free from The Knowledge Exchange website.

by James Carson

A travel plan is a package of measures aimed at promoting greener, cleaner travel choices and reducing reliance on the car. The measures can include incentives to encourage walking and cycling, promotion of public transport and the development of car-sharing clubs. Continue reading →

Does tourism pay? Assessing the evidence

Posted on June 2, 2014 by brelda baum

by Brelda Baum

It is estimated that tourism has the potential to generate $2 trillion globally by 2020 – as the economic situation improves and the ‘Great Recession’ is deemed all but over, let’s take a look at the evidence of the economic value of tourism to the UK and its regions.

The Deloitte and Oxford Economics report ‘Tourism: jobs and growth – the economic contribution of the tourism economy in the UK’ provides an analysis of the performance of the tourism industry Continue reading →

The Knowledge Exchange Blog

The official blog of The Knowledge Exchange from Idox

Tag Archives: The Knowledge Exchange

Research Online: an expert source of information on the Scottish labour market

Old problems, old solutions? Why New Towns are back in the spotlight

Evaluations Online: evaluating economic development activity in Scotland

Research Online: Scotland’s labour market hub

Does tourism pay? Assessing the evidence

The official blog of The Knowledge Exchange from Idox

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