The UK Experience by Malcolm Morley*
In July, I spoke at a conference organised by the Government’s Communities and Local Government Department. The title of the conference was, ‘Making a real difference: The role of research in delivering improvements in Local Government practice’.
The Government spends a lot of money on research. Reports and papers are constantly being produced with the aim of spreading knowledge and improving performance. The Government wants to ensure that this investment and activity really make a difference in practice.
My session was to challenge researchers and the commissioners of research from the practitioner’s perspective. I was posed a simple question by the organisers of the conference: what gets a Chief Executive to read and act upon a research report?
My starting point for answering this question was a simple question: Will the research report help me to achieve the objectives of the Council? Too frequently research seems to be an end itself rather than a means to an end. No practitioner needs another theory of change!
As with reports to Committee within Councils, the authors of national reports must understand the needs of the audience. They have to provide evidence of that understanding and contribute to those needs being met. Chief Executives will not read long reports that look backwards and contribute little to moving their Councils forwards.
It seems that academic rigour often leads to risk aversion in expressing opinions. The cynical might say that most research merely seems only to prove the need to keep researching.
My Council has recently been through its Comprehensive Performance Assessment.
In preparing for this assessment, long lists of ‘achievements’ and actions that had been taken were prepared.
The question I kept asking was: What difference have these ‘achievements’ and actions made for the communities that we serve?
Value creation is not defined by the service provider but by the recipient of services. A Council might be the best at processing housing benefit claims, but if it isn’t reaching those in greatest need through their lack of awareness of the help available, is it really successful?
The same applies for research reports and for reports to Councillors. All authors need to ask themselves: Is the content of the report really going to help the Council add value for the communities served?
There is often little attempt by researchers to market their research. It is like launching a new product in the market without promoting it and then wondering why it doesn’t have the impact desired.
Getting a message across, whether from national research or reports to Council, requires the author to generate awareness of the report, to generate interest in the issues, to achieve engagement with the content and to gain commitment to the outcomes.
Only then will the report influence investment decisions and lead to effective action.
The public sector can learn from the private sector in terms of marketing. A great deal of time and money is spent undertaking research and writing reports. Little time and money is spent promoting the products of that investment. The key, however, is for research to make a difference in practice
*Malcolm Morley is Chief Executive of Harlow District Council and can be contacted via the Editor, email info@lgfocus.com.au The views expressed
in this article are not necessarily those of his employer.
