• Learning from Participatory Budgeting in Paris: Coryn Barclay, Fife Council, presented a an overview of participatory budgeting in Paris based on her participation in the What Works Scotland’s two-day visit to Paris to learn about the city’s experience of participatory budgeting.
• Evaluating the use of the Place Standard Tool: Megan MacPherson, NHS Health Scotland provided a ‘sneak peek’ to the evaluation of the Place Standard Tool, how it has been used across Scotland.
• Less Heard Voices: Paul Nelis, SCDC, provided an overview of the National Standards for Community Engagement and how they can be used to engage with communities including those that are ‘less heard’.
• Child Poverty (Scotland) Bill: Alastair McAlpine, Scottish Government led a discussion about the data/information that may assist in understanding child poverty in Scotland and contribute to the proposed “Local child povety action report”.
• ScotPHO Profile Development: Vicky Elliot, ISD NHS Scotland, along with Jamie Villicampa, presented an update on the future development of the SCOTPho profiles with discussions about data sources, considerations when selecting /defining indicators, current challenges and using a new technical platform.

The next LARIA Listens event will be held in the autumn, topics TBD – ‘Watch this Space’, the Analysis, Intelligence and Research (AIR) – Scotland site, and the LARIA website.

The post LARIA Listens Event, Perth – A Summary appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

Key discussions will be:

• Megan MacPherson, NHS Health Scotland – Place Standard Tool evaluation work.
• Alastair McAlpine, Scottish Government – Talking about what CPP’s need to support duty on Child Poverty.

For booking information, please click here.

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Wednesday 30 November, 10 am – 3 pm, at Learning Academy, Glasgow City Chambers

Come along to Laria Listens if you want to share practice and network with others involved in local area research in Scotland.

Book your place via the eventbrite link

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/laria-in-scotland-laria-listens-tickets-27520717206?aff=es2

This time around we will be focusing on

Changing services

• Using Research to transform services
• Changing behaviours around money advice

Improving Places

• Place-based approaches and
• how they are being applied in Fife and West Dunbartonshire (both of whom are case study areas in What Works Scotland Collaborative Action Research Workstream)

Please contact Erin Murray ermurray@scotborders.gov.uk or  Coryn Barclay coryn.barclay@fife.gov.uk to tell us about any wicked or burning issues you have with local research, analysis and use of evidence, that you would like to see discussed through Laria Listens

The post Laria Listens: Changing Services, Improving Places appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

Come along to Laria Listens if you want to share practice and network with others involved in local area research in Scotland.

Book your place via the eventbrite link below

Please contact Erin Murray ermurray@scotborders.gov.uk or  Coryn Barclay coryn.barclay@fife.gov.uk to tell us about any wicked or burning issues you have with local research, analysis and use of evidence, that you would like to see discussed through Laria Listens

The post Scotland: Laria Listens appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

• learn what is and what isn’t working in their local area
• encourage collaborative learning with a range of local authority, business, public sector and community partners
• better understand what effective policy interventions and effective services look like
• promote the use of evidence in planning and service delivery
• help organisations get the skills and knowledge they need to use and interpret evidence
• create case studies for wider sharing and sustainability

In addition other local and national partnerships will be developed within the case study areas and as priority topics are identified.

The Workplan 2014-2017 document outlines how WWS will achieve its aim of improving the way agencies in Scotland use evidence to make decisions about public service development, delivery and reform.

Laria in Scotland will be working directly with What Works Scotland on the Evidence into Action workstream: supporting the use of evidence in planning, delivering and developing public services during the life of the project, and developing a sustainable evidence ‘ecosystem’ beyond it.

This will involve creating methods to ensure evidence from published research local and national data and information, the voices of local communities and other sources, can be effectively used in planning and developing public services, and delivering evidence to support What Works Scotland collaborative action research projects.  An Evidence Bank, and a Knowledge Broker Network will also be developed.

Please join the mailing list if you want to keep up to date with this or other news from What Works Scotland

Read the latest What Works Scotland blog

The post What Works Scotland appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

If you are interested in coming along to a Laria Listens event to network with others involved in local area research in Scotland.

Please contact Erin Murray or  Coryn Barclay to tell us about any wicked or burning issues you have with local research, analysis and use of evidence, that you would like to see discussed through Laria Listens.

Please note that these sessions are intended to complement events from existing networks, such as PAMS, AQMEN, and learning network sessions that will be developed through the Outcomes, Evidence and Performance workstream (formerly Improving Evidence and Data Group) to support community planning partnerships to use evidence more effectively.

Book your place here 

Photo credit: Glasgow City Council by Kim Traynor

The post LARIA in Scotland – Laria Listens March 18th 2015 appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

Moreover, the potential ‘Boris effect’ can be seen across all regions except Greater London: it is strongest in the Midlands and the North, where the potential increase in the Conservative share of the vote stands at eight and seven percentage points respectively. These figures are illustrated in the table below.

While the general election results will also depend on wider factors than the personality of the party leaders, this indicates that a change in the Conservative leadership could have a significant effect in the regions in which its performance has traditionally been weakest. Moreover, further research by Ipsos MORI reveals a public belief that Johnson’s standing as an MP would have a positive impact on the electoral fortunes of the Conservative party: more than half (51%) of the electorate believe that this will be the case.

Further information regarding each of these reports can be found here and here.

Photo credit: Boris Johnson by Financial Times.

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Meanwhile, concern with a range of other issues has risen. The proportion of voters who mention unemployment as one of the most important issues facing the country has risen from 21% in June 2010 to 32% in May 2014, while the proportion who cite issues surrounding the NHS has risen from 19% to 27% over the same time period. Concern with race relations and immigration has also increased, though not by as great a margin as might be expected: the proportion of voters mentioning the issue as a concern stood at 29% in June 2010, and has now risen to 34%.

This declining level of concern with the economy and equivalent increase with regard to other issues can be seen across almost all UK regions. Concern with the economy has fallen by more than twenty-five percentage points in all regions except Greater London, bringing the proportions of voters expressing concern about the issue to a more geographically uniform level. Concern with unemployment has risen across all regions, while the proportion of voters who mentioned issues surrounding the NHS has risen in all areas except Scotland. However, the issue of immigration presents a less uniform picture. While the proportion of voters to mention the issue has risen in southern England and in the Midlands, the inverse is true in Scotland, Northern England and Greater London. Detailed figures regarding these changes can be seen in the tables below.

For further information, please see the Ipsos MORI releases on the Issues Index results for May 2014 and June 2010, and the Ipsos MORI Issues Index archive.

Photo credit: English Money by Images Money.

The post Concern with the economy falling across all UK regions appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

Photo: Big Data water landscape by Marius B

The post Capita funded Big Data & Ethics PhD appeared first on LARIA - Local Area Research + Intelligence Association.

Drawing upon evidence from the latest Future of England Survey, the report shows that 39% of people living in England think that local authorities should have more powers, compared to just 14% who think that local authorities should have fewer powers.  It also shows that support for greater powers is particularly strong in the regions of the North East and North West of England and that a ‘Boris of the North’ is needed to provide strong leadership in the North and who can make the case for further powers and controls.

The report says that people feel most strongly attached to their local area. 80% of people said they felt closely attached to their local area, compared to 75% to England, 66% to Britain and 26% to Europe.

Ed Cox, Director of IPPR North, said: “Local attachment is felt strongest outside of London and the South East and translates into calls for more powerful local institutions. The UK government has now offered new powers and institutions to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London, where social and political identification have been strongest, but this should not be the end of the story. The Scottish referendum later in the year is already shining a light on the so called English question; central government should now listen and respond to the public appetite for more powers for the city-regions outside London.” 

Photo credit: Victoria Quay by Scottish Government

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