CONFIDENTIAL

WEST MIDLANDS COMBINED AUTHORITY /
Review of Research, Intelligence and Transformation (RIT) Capacity /
Main Report
Jason Lowther /

Draft to MR4/3/2016

Review of Research, Intelligence and Transformation (RIT) Capacity

Contents

Executive Summary

Main Report

Introduction

Current culture

Research capacity and capability

Universities

Current practice

Data devolution

Transformation approaches

Case studies

Greater Manchester

New York

Avon & Somerset Predictive Analysis

Durham Institute for Local Governance

Conclusions

Agreed actions

Review of Research, Intelligence and Transformation (RIT) Capacity in WMCA

Executive Summary

The WMCA Launch Statement makes a strong commitment that “future strategic decisions should only be taken on the basis of the empirical evidence supporting both the problem and the solution”.

The WMCA needs serious long-term strategic thinking and research which give a coherent, long-term and rigorous analysis to take forward its ambitions. Research and intelligence can help to design policies and activities that deliver improved outcomes for WM residents, including reducing the demand for public services.

Robust research and intelligence will help the Combined Authority by:

•Informing debates on strategic priorities and future local services

•Exploring options for radical changes in services and infrastructure

•Identifying ways to free up resources to tackle priorities

•Demonstrating value for money locally and to national government.

In particular, over the next two years WMCA needs robust research and intelligence that is agreed across agencies and authorities to:

•Identify in greater granularity both the key economic and social issues facing WM and the policy approaches that work best in response to those issues.

•Focus resources on strategic priorities and on interventions that the evidence suggests are most effective in relation to those priorities (and shift resources from less effective interventions).

•Provide commissioners with the analysis they need to develop business plans, quantify costs and benefits, evaluate performance and execute joint investments.

•Support the public accountability of the WMCA by making decisions more transparent and tangible.

•Help build the public service reform agenda around our three principles of prevention, cost-effectiveness and empowerment.

This paper presents a review of current use of RIT in the West Midlands and proposes how to make evenbetter use of RITin the WMCA area. This final report responds to comments made by Chief Executives and interviewees in response to the first draft in February.

WMCA councils and partners devote significant resources to research and intelligence, delivered both in-house and by consultants.

The research evidence used by the CA to date has included new economic analysis and significantsynthesisingof existing work previously undertaken by individual organisations. Going forward, a number of difficulties need to be addressed including:

•Coordinating to deliver integrated research and intelligence when demands are great and timescales short (leading to the need to outsource work to expensive consultancies).

•A lack of standardisation in how research is undertakenreducing the comparability of outputs, for example how data is defined.

•Problems around effective data sharing and security.

•Higher costs due to duplication, for example multiple software licences.

WMCA needs to develop:

•A better integrated and more multi-disciplinary research and intelligence capability able to produce outputs to a common high standard.

•Research and analysis staff continuing to meet the needs of their immediate organisations and funding partners, whilst increasingly meeting a broader WM strategic agenda.

•Knowledge and expertise being brought together in a flexible way to enable an integrated evidence base to be applied to a joined up policy approach.

Agreed actions

WMCA will adopt a strategic approach to research and intelligence, setting out its role in the CA and the key principles it will adopt (see accompanying Research Strategy).

WMCA will develop a three year research delivery plan for its key outputs (eg joint strategic assessments) and the available resources. There will be a clear but efficient process for updating the plan as needs change.

The early priorities are to:

  1. Complete a feasibility assessment of approaches to develop the research, intelligence and transformation capacity the WMCA will need.
  2. Establish a “data working group”.
  3. Develop proposals to network research and intelligence practitioners.
  4. Commission evidence “packages” for the Public Service Reform programme.

Main Report

Introduction

This review was initiated by the Public Service Reform Board in November 2015 with the following objectives:

  1. To identify WMCA’s current and future requirements for research and intelligence
  2. To map current research, intelligence and transformation activity and capability in the area
  3. To develop proposals to enhance collaboration amongst research, intelligence and transformation staff in different organisations
  4. To address data and intelligence sharing issues
  5. To explore opportunities for greater synergies and flexibility, and to reduce duplication
  6. To explore the potential contributions of regional universities
  7. To recommend how WMCA’s requirements can best be met

The review approach has included:

  • Analysis of key WMCA documents.
  • Interviews with officers nominated by the Chief Executive in each local authority and LEP.
  • Estimating the councils’ commissioned research, intelligence and transformationactivities, and relevant in-house staff and costs.
  • Exploring models and learning fromcouncils elsewhere.

The review was completed by an Assistant Director seconded from Birmingham City Council (Jason Lowther) under the direction of Martin Reeves and Nick Page.

In this report italicised text are quotations from the interview fieldwork.

Current culture

“You’re gonna be improving service delivery by hopefully being able to hone services to the actual needs of communities” (interview quote)

The review found high levels of understanding of the potential value of research and intelligence in the WMCA in supporting politicians, staff and other stakeholders to deliver better economic growth and public service reform.

Whilst public policy always has a wide range of influences, such as political priorities, business perspectives and national government direction, the influence of research and intelligence is viewed as important in designing effective policy and practice.

New research has been completed for the WMCA around the sub-regional economy including developing a common framework of economic forecasting and vision-led scenarios, extending the Oxford economic model to develop a Dynamic Economic Impact Model to measure the impact of programmes in a spatial context, and analysis around the “Functional Economic Metropolitan Area” to check that the proposed CA geography had a reasonable fit with travel to work and industrial sectors in the area. This work has used a variety of providers including the Black Country Consortium Economic Intelligence Unit, the City-Region Economic Development Institute and MetroDynamics. The work enabled an economic sectoral analysis to be agreed jointly by all WMCA councils and LEPs.

Some of the economic research has been synthesised from previous work. This has involved some difficult discussions, for example reaching a common view of how different business sectors are defined. The forthcoming Strategic Economic Plan for the West Midlands should provide a strategic framework and supporting performance management framework.

This review has not sought to test the robustness of this research.

Very little research has yet been completed around the public service reform agenda, although the Mental Health Commission is undertaking reviews of existing evidence and the PSR team is using implementation science research tools to support work developing a “filter” to help prioritise reform propositions.

Most WMCA councils and partners individually are increasingly relying on intelligence to drive service planning. Approaches such as “task and finish” groups focussed on particular issues are helping staff and members to understand the intelligence and its implications for service planning in more depth. Some interviewees identified the need for a better “flow” of intelligence to drive longer term policy making by LAs and LEPs. In contrast the Black Country Consortium said highlighted its evidence base which enabled the development of a clear strategy and core strategy integrated with an annual performance framework and regular themed “barometer” reports evidencing changes in the local economy.

Difficulties exist around how to addressdifficult findings in thepolitical and media environment, although interviewees said partners such as business leaders can sometimes address contentious issues more easily than councils. Central government monitoring has declined in the last five years,however it remains a significant burden on councils (particularly in children’s services). And interviewees said sometimes councils themselves are not focussing on the right intelligence that could drive better services.

WMCA councils particularly value case studies of “what works?” from other councils, tacit local knowledge (eg of councillors concerning their wards), expert knowledge (eg of businesses regarding their sector) and data such as socio-economic statistics and customer analysis. They currently make less use of cost-benefit analysis for public service innovations, formal experiments / trials and robust evaluation.

Research capacity and capability

Councils differ in how their response to austerity has impacted on their capacity around research and intelligence. Some have cut these ‘back office’ functions in order to focus finance on the ‘front line’. Others have viewed research and intelligence as critical to developing a new approach to delivery and have invested in these functions.

Overall, WMCA councils currently invest significantly in research, intelligence and transformation. Our rough estimates are that the seven WMCA constituent councils:

  • Have around 200 staff (Full Time Equivalents) working on research/analysis and a further 120 working on transformation activities.
  • Spendat least £1m on commissioned research, excluding the costs of the Black Country Consortium[1]and Birmingham’sFuture Council Programme.
  • Spendat least £0.4m on specialist analysis software (such as GIS, socio-demographic data, performance monitoring and statistical software) and analysis tools in operational systems (eg Business Objects).

There are significant examples of collaborative networks within the WMCA area, usually on a geographic, professional or thematic basis (eg the Black Country Consortium, the West Midlands Public Health and Children’s Services networks respectively). There are also emerging collaborations with national bodies (such as Public Health England). Examples of collaborative work include Walsall’s recent cross-partner needs assessment around domestic violence issues.

Specialist organisations support their given areas of expertise such as the NHS Commissioning Support Unit (health), Marketing Birmingham’s Regional Observatory (inward investment and the visitor economy), the Black Country Consortium (economic analysis) and Centro (transport). The contribution of local universities is considered separately below.
Interviewees suggested that networking professionals with expertise around research, intelligence and analysis would be helpful in sharing good practice and developing joint approaches in future.

Universities

“if we can crack it, it would be really beneficial because you’ve then got one route in and then it’s all of the universities being clear and agreeing who’s going to lead…rather than they all sort of vying for the same stuff”

WMCA has a high concentration of research expertise. There are strong strategic and operational links between universities and their local councils and LEPs. Councils view universities as valued partners across a range of areas, including their engagement in the LEPs, their specialist research knowledge, and their wide social and economic contributions to the area as key “anchor institutions”.

There are several commondifficulties in utilising university research expertise in public service delivery, for example around differences in timescales and performance drivers (eg Research Excellence Framework standards compared to local public service application standards). National work with universities, SOLACE and the LGA is developing ways to ameliorate many of these.

Locally, councils often find it difficult to work effectively with local universities on research projects. Universities are viewed as in unhelpful competition with each other and sometimesperceived to be opaque in terms of their specialist “offer” to public services.

There are several areas of current and emerging helpful practice in the region, including:

  • Universities West Midlands: a membership organisation working to represent the interests of the Higher Education Institutions within the West Midlands region, aiming “to be a positive force for influence and economic, social and cultural well-being and public benefit”.
  • The Public Service Academy(PSA) has enhanced links between council managers and practitioners with academics, leading to useful applied research outputs. The PSA is staffed and funded by the University of Birmingham.
  • The City Region Economic and Development Institute (City REDI) will analyse a wide range of factors influencing regional growth and is part of a consortium bid to deliver a Dynamic Economic Impact Model for the West Midlands Combined Authority. The University of Birmingham is investing £4.8m in the institute.
  • The Centre for Doctoral Training in Urban Scienceat the University of Warwick isthe UK’s only Centre for Doctoral Training in urban science. This is supported by £3.8m from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and additional industry sponsorship from companies such as AT&T, Microsoft, Jaguar Land Rover and Assured Property Group. The Centre is training the next generation of urban scientists in data science and developing applications for data collection, analysis, modelling and visualisation to address urban challenges. Birmingham City Council is a partner and currently have a studentship looking at children’s services.
  • Birmingham Institute for New Urban Science (BONUS): BCC, UoW, Aston and BCU are collaborating to bring the combined strengths of the three universities in urban science at a Birmingham city-level. BONUS will harvest and process big data in order to develop a better understanding of the science of cities, and to apply that knowledge to find smart solutions to urban problems.

Councils would like the universities to:

  1. Develop a shared commitment to developing research capacity and high level research skills; access to national and international ideas and evidence; independent testing of WMCA research and policy, and external research bids.
  2. Reach a shared understanding of the WMCA’s priority policy areas where research can add most value, and who are the most relevant academics willing to support this work.
  3. Provide a sign-posting and “brokerage” service to match public policy leads with the relevant research experts in local universities.
  4. Develop more timely ways to respond to research requests, for example through a facility to provide rapid reviews of evidence and evaluations.

The two universities in Liverpool recently produced an independent stock-take report on “The state of Liverpool city region” to contribute to the local devolution debate. It assesses where the city region now stands, where it should go next, how it should get there and how devolution might help. It identifies key challenges, such as challenging existing strategies and proposes creating an organisation to generate better intelligence, analysis and arguments. The WM universities might consider whether, at an appropriate time, such a joint independent review by local academics could have benefit to the WMCA?

Current practice

WMCA councils undertake a variety of research and intelligence activities. The fieldwork investigated the use of common research and intelligence approaches in the seven local authorities. The findings are summarised below as follows:

  • Universally used approaches: strategic assessments, performance monitoring, benchmarking, citizen consultation, social media, Lean reviews and GIS mapping
  • Less frequently used approaches: forecasting and modelling, scenario planning, predictive modelling, evaluation, “what works?” literature reviews, qualitative research, social cost-benefit analysis, behavioural change (nudge), formal experiments (trials).

Further details are provided in the Appendix to this report, but issues around specific approaches include the following:

•Strategic assessments: all councils undertake thematic assessments (eg around health and wellbeing). But these don’t always provide an overarching assessment of need or cross-cutting issues.

•Performance monitoring: all councils monitor performance indicators, although these do not always effectively identify and address critical performance issues.

•Benchmarking: comparisons of performance and cost metrics are very common, though this doesn’t always lead to process benchmarking to understand the reasons for better performance in other areas.

•Consultation: all councils consult citizens and businesses around their budget and service re-design proposals. A range of on-line and off-line approaches are used, with a trend towards more discursive and deliberative conversational approaches.

•Social media: all councils promote their messages, and monitor and respond to comments, on Facebook and Twitter. A few are exploring how social media can be used to promote off-line community activity.

•Mapping: There is widespread use of Geographic Information Systems to understand citizen need, service demand and accessibility issues. The analysis and application of this intelligence to service re-design needs further development.

•Forecasting and modelling: Councils generally use national forecasts somewhat uncritically, potentially missing significant risks and lobbying opportunities. Expertise in this area is underdeveloped in WMCA councils.

•Scenario planning: some councils are using scenarios to model new service configurations, but they could be more widely used to help think about the consequences and risks of different policy options.

•Predictive modelling: Councils and partners are aware of the potential value of predictive modelling to their “prevention” agenda and work has been done in several service areas, however there is no clear centre of expertise in the councils.