Hilda Campbell from COPE Scotland, writing about the Scottish launch in May 2016 of Catherine Durose’s book, Designing Public Policy for Co-Production: Theory, practice and change.
Blog: Decision Making – Does Anyone Care?
What Works Scotland research fellow Rosemary Anderson reflects, in November 2015, on the relationship between decision-making and caring in public policy work.
Blog: Why Place?
What does ‘place’ offer to public service development? in this blog from December 2016 What Works Scotland’s Claire Bynner examines the role of place-based approaches – what works and what doesn’t.
Blog: In an era of killer sound-bites how can researchers and policy makers close the gap between complexity and simplicity?
Dr Claire Bynner from What Works Scotland writes about complexity and shares some of the highlights from the Social Research Association’s 2016 annual conference. She discusses how we might bridge the gap between complexity and simplicity.
Blog: Better Place – Communities, Citizens and Consumers & New Approaches to Social Policy & Public Services
Alistair Stoddart of The Democratic Society, shares some initial thoughts in March 2015 from the Better Place forum, a gathering of community development workers, academics, campaigners, public service managers, and local and national senior officials to look at ways to allow greater citizen involvement in public service decisions and delivery.
Blog: Review of The Whitehall Effect
Former Scottish Government minister Jim Mather reviews John Seddon’s book, The Whitehall effect: how Whitehall became the enemy of great public services and what we can do about it.
Blog: Why Can’t We Trust the Word ‘Welfare’ in Policy Making?
Dr Hayley Bennett reflects on the complex nature of the relationship between citizens and the welfare state, and how can we make policy reforms and changes to public services to support those in need if decisions and reforms are based on inconsistent use of terms and data?