The work spot, 17.06.08

Onward and onward…

May was marked by a trip to Prague, to the Regional Studies Association conference, to give a co-authored paper on “local and regional economic development: a perspective from the research practitioner community in the English regions”.  The conference itself was addressed by the Czech prime minister (language issues rather predominated) and an EU commissioner, which made for an interesting introduction to a differing set of European priorities.  I found a session given by the chap in CLG responsible for spatial economic policy of interest (talking about the SNR supporting paper “Why Place Matters”) and it was fascinating to hear an academic response to a policy paper.  I encountered Les Budd from the Open University and we had a brief chat about Leitch… and also Chris MacDonald from Monash University, who’s evaluating emda as part of his research.  The presentation went well, despite being put into a workstream with some fairly divergent subjects, and being on at 5.30pm at the end of a long, hot, sticky day.  I’ve been polishing up the full written version, for submission to the conference website, and for hosting on the ARO site.  I also managed to get sight of a paper written by Peter Wells (Sheffield Hallam) on the impact of think tanks on regional policy, which I will try to utilise in the future.

The workshop on June 2nd went well, and taking a more interactive approach seemed to work well (and was something I was keen to do).  Contacts were reestablished with key CLG folk, and with a new BERR team member, and Ian Gordon from LSE had some really interesting views to add.  The venue worked well, and the organisation went relatively smoothly, though I could have done without spending the time stuffing delegate packs (especially when I thought I’d sorted the admin team to do that), and without having to run across London to locate a vegan sandwich when the caterers let me down.  There were two main stumbling blocks, though.  The final session had been left relatively open, relying on the conference chair to draw together key points from the day and open it up to the floor.  That didn’t work – so whether we need to have a more established panel, or another speaker, or some kind of summary – that needs further thought for any future events.  The second issue is the write up.  I have drafted a conference report, but it was felt that something which drew out member contributions to implementing SNR more explicitly was needed.  I’ve drafted another paper which does that (which I need feed back on), plus a response directly to the questions posed in SNR consultation.  All of which has meant spending plenty of time on that, rather than being guided by member input as I hoped.  Still, I’ve already had one really positive response on my work, from a Chief Exec (not the ARO Chair), which is much appreciated.

Lobbying is another issue on which progress has been made, but more needs to be done.  A comms consultant has been engaged, and is leading us through the process of identifying stakeholders, and drafting stakeholder, Parliamentary / Whitehall and media strategies.  As I felt when I attended my training, it’s all very much common sense – but it is having the time to develop and implement the plan which is important, particularly alongside my other responsibilities.

I’ve been trying to introduce new online applications to support the collaborative work of the members, adding to the wiki by using online text editing.  Some have taken to this more readily than others, but I plan to try and drive more traffic to the wiki by putting the agenda and papers for the next Board meeting on there, as well as asking members to spend time inputting to the research database.  It might be of value for me to add some of that detail, then ask them to amend it – getting things terribly, chronically wrong has definitely been the most effective way of getting input to date!

The work spot, 31.03.08

Twelve months after starting a work blog, I have decided that I will get greater benefit from it as a work tool if I am able to use it on a regular basis. Therefore, I have decided to try and set myself the task of writing a post once a week. During learning / courses etc, time is built in for reflection on what’s been learnt, how it might be used, whether you are putting it into practice and where further training / research needs lie – or how to better adopt the training you’ve had. I think I would benefit from this in a work context, making my actions and my evaluations more mindful.

This is also a good time to start on this, because it is time, once again, for the LARIA conference – the event which initially sparked a blog as a place to log my thoughts on the various speakers and topics at last year’s conference. This year, I am only attending for the opening day (not least because I have noted a certain number of similarities in this year’s programme – but also because I have encountered the speakers in other places) and so I am hoping to make best use of the time by seeing the opening keynotes and plenaries without spending a lot of time in very specific breakout sessions.

Last year was also very useful as a networking exercise and this is something that I need to remind myself is worth doing. It is perhaps an inevitable corollary of being based in a very separate organisation, with virtually the smallest observatory, and with few connections to relevant national policy, that networking can get a little bit forgotten.

There has been talk recently of ARO building a closer relationship with LARIA, and perhaps putting ourselves forward for a place on the steering committee (or equivalent title). It is an interesting notion but the recent strategic planning process has left me questioning the extent to which the strategic objectives of ARO would be served by such a move. Would being part of, essentially, a local government professionals network, serve our wish to support evidence-based policy-making?

Evidence-based policy-making (I’m sticking to my hyphens!) [EBPM, or EBP] has become something of a dirty word(s) of late. Perhaps after 10 years of avowing obeisance to the concept, the patter is wearing thin, particularly for policy-makers who find that evidence is at worst unhelpful (difficult to understand or not answering their questions) and at worst positively obstructive to their plans. Also, throughout the planning process, the consultant assisting my colleague in her comparable process has sworn away from ‘evidence’ as a concept. I appreciate the challenging nature of his thinking but in some ways it is less helpful for me due to my explicit remit to support observatories, whose role (as set down in legislation) is to provide an evidence base.

EBPM can also sound a bit trite. Perhaps the fact that all those in the evidence world feel underappreciated or underused by their policy colleagues means that some cynicism about the real efficacy of the process is creeping in?

You’ll notice that this blog is not hosted on the original server – sadly my original blog host appears to have disappeared beneath the waves (perhaps it felt neglected by my lack of posting). I will try to back up my original posts here as a useful archive of notes and thinking.