Supporting local capacity
Local research teams are being asked for increasingly sophisticated analysis to support decision-making and improve service delivery. OCSI are committed to supporting and developing local research capacity to meet these demands. All our projects include a strong dissemination element, to help embed research findings into local policy development and service delivery. In addition, OCSI Director Tom Smith is a Local Improvement Advisor, specialising in the Building analytic capacity and Performance management themes.
- Locally, we have worked on developing the business case for research teams and technical systems. In Brighton and Hove we worked with the Brighton and Hove partnership to identify the business case and technical specification for the redevelopment of the award-winning CityStats Local Information System. In Norfolk, we worked with project partners Educe to develop costed options for a new corporate analysis and research function.
- In work OCSI have led for the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG), Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency, we have identified how national and regional partners can more effectively support local partner research and analysis (shortly to be published by CLG as "Supporting Local Information, Analysis and Research"). The work also highlighted questions for local partners on their local research capacity. In follow-up sessions, findings from the project have been disseminated at a series of workshops and presentations at national conferences. Feedback from local partners has identified that the work is already helping strengthen local research functions to meet Local Area Agreement and Comprehensive Area Assessment needs.
- OCSI projects at national level are helping support local and regional research teams developing the evidence-base. The Data for Neighbourhoods and Regeneration (Data4nr) service signposts users to nationally-published datasets, and gives an assessment of dataset suitability for performance management and benchmarking/trend analysis. As part of the LAA development programme, we worked with CLG to identify those indicators that would be reliable enough for use by local partners for target-setting (published by CLG as "Assessing Neighbourhood-Level Data for LAA Target Setting"). Part of the work developed guidance and "practical solutions" to support local partners in using small area data.
Please contact us to identify how OCSI can help you strengthen your local research capacity, and use the resources on this website.