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Research Projects

Public Sector Reform in the North East

Contact Email: d.hiscock@ippr.org

Introduction

ippr north launched a Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East in September 2007. The Commission, the fifth in ippr's 19-year history and the first to be run by ippr north in Newcastle, is exploring the policy challenges around the reform and renewal of public services, with a particular focus on the North East region.

The goal of the Commission is to catalyse improved health, wealth and well-being for individuals and communities within the North East region by proposing policy measures which aim to strengthen the effectiveness of public services locally, regionally and nationally in a socially just way.

The Commission is considering how ongoing public service reforms in health, education, criminal justice and welfare to work are being implemented on the front line. It is looking in particular at how current trends in public service reform towards more personal, more local services will impact on the region: what potential do personalisation and localisation have to resolve the current mismatch whereby many public services record excellent performance figures yet inequalities remain entrenched in many outcomes?

The Commission is independent. It is chaired by Sir George Russell CBE, Deputy Chair of ITV, and has a membership of experts from all areas of involvement in the public services. The members are responsible for setting the strategic direction of research, approving the Commission's work plan, and reviewing and analysing key policy challenges. The Commission meets in full session on a quarterly basis.

ippr north provides the Secretariat to the Commission. It has also established an advisory group of five to six experts with in-depth knowledge of the North East region.

Commissioners

Chair:

  • Sir George Russell CBE, Deputy Chair of ITV plc

Members:

  • David Albury, Independent organisational and policy consultant, and former Principal Adviser, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit
  • Joe Docherty, Chief Executive, Tees Valley Regeneration and ippr north advisory board member
  • Fiona Ellis, Director, Northern Rock Foundation
  • Margaret Fay OBE, Chairman, ONE NorthEast
  • Roger Kelly, Chief Executive, Gateshead Council
  • Melanie Laws, Director, Association of North East Councils
  • Baroness Estelle Morris, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Sunderland University and ippr north advisory board member
  • Sean Price, Chief Constable, Cleveland Police
  • Baroness Joyce Quin, former regional MP and MEP
  • James Ramsbotham, Chief Executive, North East Chamber of Commerce
  • Marcus Robinson, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers and ippr north advisory board member
  • Sue Stirling, Commission Deputy Chair and Director, ippr north
  • Julia Unwin, Director, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
  • Professor Gerald Wistow, Chair, School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Durham

All Commissioners are serving in a personal capacity and bring individual expertise. They do not represent the interests of any organisation.

The full Commission panel meets regularly in order to discuss key challenges, review progress and shape future research priorities. To date, five meetings full Commission meetings have been held. The most recent meeting took place on 20 October 2008.

Research


The Commission began with a review of some of the main issues and trends in public services and public sector reform in the North East in recent years. This consisted of:

  • A literature review of the Government’s reform programme, drawing out the key principles that drive decision-making and identifying the most important academic commentaries on its theoretical framework.
  • A review of the available performance data from each key sector across the North East region and at local authority level, to establish the absolute and relative performance of public services both within the region and in comparison with the rest of the UK.
  • Engagement with key stakeholders in early discussions on the central challenges they anticipate for public services in the coming years.

This review resulted in the publication of the Audit of Public Sector Reform in the North East.

The Commission is now in the process of developing a detailed analysis of how trends towards ‘personalisation’ and ‘localisation’, which promise to move away from over-centralised, one-size-fits-all provision of public services, are having an impact on the region. It seeks to identify what these terms mean in practice, how they are being implemented and how they are linking together (and whether they will promote joined-up government and improved local-level partnership).

This is rooted in coherent and robust evidence from the front line of reform in the North East. Research is now being conducted using the following methods:

  • Research papers: Action research is being developed to fill gaps in the evidence base and provide detailed analysis of some key challenges. Expert papers are being commissioned to offer new and different perspectives which will develop the Commission’s thinking on the main issues.
  • Regional Call for Evidence: The Commission will soon publish a regional call for evidence to provide inputs from a wider range of sources from across the region and from experts in all areas of the public services. This will be followed by an evidence panel which will assess the information generated by the call.
  • Roundtables and stakeholder engagement: Events to promote informal dialogue with public service users and practitioners and other key stakeholder groups.

All of this information will be brought together in the Commission’s final report, which will identify new strategic directions for public services in the North East.

Files

 

Links

 

Publications

Prospects for More Local, More Personalised Public Services: A North East perspective

This discussion paper sets out of some of the key questions that ippr north’s Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East will be considering over the coming months, and the analysis that forms the backdrop to these questions.

view publication

An audit of public sector reform in the North East

This paper considers four key areas of the public sector – criminal justice, education, health and welfare-to-work – and the changes that have taken place within them over the last decade, from 1997 to March 2007.

view publication