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Evaluation of the Cycling City and Towns Programme - Interim Report
An interim report was published in January 2011 on the evaluation of the Cycling City and Towns programme (which was implemented between April 2008 and March 2011), being undertaken by a consortium including AECOM, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, and the University of West of England Centre for Transport and Society.
The programme, funded by the Department for Transport and Department of Health and overseen by Cycling England, was designed to promote cycling and explore the impact of increased investment in cycling infrastructure and supporting behaviour change measures on the number of cyclists and frequency of cycling, in one cycling city and eleven cycling towns (CCT). The evaluation is assessing the impact of this in terms of changes in levels of people cycling, and changes in policy and practice of the organisations involved in delivering programme activities.
The interim report gives results from a baseline survey of cycling behaviour, attitudes towards cycling and wider travel behaviours in the 12 CCTs, and early emerging findings from the overall evaluation. The report explores the benefits of increasing the level of cycling as well as identifying the existing barriers to cycling amongst different groups and specifically how these barriers can be overcome. Also the different strategies adopted within the 12 CCTs are discussed.
Report published on the feasibility of transferring budget and commissioning responsibility of Sexual Offences examinations
The Department of Health’s Violence and Social Exclusion Programme and Home Office commissioned Health Services Management Centre (HSMC) University of Birmingham and The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) to undertake this feasibility study, which was carried out between September 2010 and February 2011. Outlined below is the background and rationale to this study:
Since the early 2000s, a series of independent reports have argued that there are not enough competent forensic physicians for sexual offences work (HMCPSI/HMC ‘Thematic Inspection of Rape’, 2002; subsequent HMCPSI/HMIC joint review, ‘Without Consent’, 2005).
Their response to these issues together with the Home Office was a strategic undertaking to examine the “feasibility of transferring budget and commissioning responsibility for forensic sexual offences examination work to the NHS at the earliest opportunity”.
The Coalition Government's commitment to address the underlying issues is part of the strategy, Call to end Violence against Women and Girls and the subsequent Action Plan, published in March 2011. The Plan also responds to Baroness Stern’s independent review of how public authorities, including the NHS and police forces, deal with rape cases.
The research team led by Deborah Davidson, Senior Fellow at HSMC comprised:
Dr. Tessa Crilly, Independent Health Economist
Dr. Gill Combes, Senior Associate, HSMC
Olivia Joyner, Researcher, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Shaun Doidge, Researcher, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Delivery of Local Road Safety: Road Safety Research Report
The Department of Transport has published AECOM/ TIHR's evaluation report and seven thematic papers highlighting good practice and lessons learnt in delivering local road safety.
The process evaluation and action learning methodology helps to understand what is being delivered at local authority level and identifies lessons and good practice in road safety.
The Department for Transport (DfT) commissioned AECOM, in association with the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, to design and deliver a three-year independent evaluation of the delivery of local road user safety. The evaluation was commissioned to consider the following objectives:
The evaluation involved a detailed review of engineering, enforcement and education, training and publicity (ETP) interventions. A process evaluation considered the extent and quality of integration between officers responsible for the different elements of road user safety. Two areas of particular focus were local authority capacity building and the synergy effect of integrated delivery and partnership working.
The evaluation team worked in collaboration with 14 case study authorities to understanding the key challenges, barriers and constraints to road safety delivery. The evaluation also aimed to identify good practice in delivering interventions targeted towards specific road user groups, such as young road users and motorcyclists, as the targeting of investment becomes a more central element of local area strategies.
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations’ contribution to the evaluation included leading on the design of the process evaluation methodology (Appendix A), undertaking interviews with road safety practitioners in the 14 local authorities and contributing to thematic case studies on partnership working (Appendix D) , the policy and context of road safety (Appendix G) and local road safety structure (Appendix C).
The process evaluation methodology builds on the Tavistock Institute’s expertise in theory of change evaluations and action learning. The Tavistock team facilitated theory of change workshops with 14 local authorities to map out specific interventions, explore good practice and identify factors helping and hindering the achievement of anticipated outcomes. Three action learning groups were convened to discuss the following topics:
The three action learning groups consisted of road safety practitioners from local authorities, regional government offices and the DfT and met four times throughout the study in order to learn from each other and develop their practice. Feedback on the action learning events highlighted the benefits of this method. In the words of one participant: "I have been fortunate to be part of these action learning sets… The sessions have been the catalyst for me to bring about some changes in our team regarding the issues brought up during the sessions and it has been really really bene?cial" (participant).
The published reports can be found at the website below:
New Guidance for Evaluation in the Transport Sector
The Tavistock Institute, in partnership with AECOM, were recently commissioned by the Department for Transport to develop a set of guidance for those commissioning and undertaking impact evaluations in the transport sector.
This addresses one of the main challenges in undertaking an evaluation: how to demonstrate that the observed outcomes and impacts have been caused by the intervention, confidently ruling out the influence of external factors.
The guidance provides a step by step guide for considering the most suitable evaluation approach to take, taking into account the type of intervention being delivered, the wider context within which it is taking place and the evidence requirements. It is not intended to be prescriptive but provide a flexible framework for selecting the best overarching evaluation approach.
Although primarily designed for the transport sector, those commissioning and undertaking evaluation in other sectors may also find this guidance useful. Although not covering all aspects of evaluation, it does provide an in depth comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of different evaluation designs and the circumstances under which each might be chosen, focusing particularly on simple outcome, experimental and theory based approaches.
The earlier steps in the guidance – covering the value of undertaking a ‘mapping’ of the underlying logic of a project or programme - can be applied to all types of evaluation.
Guide to Logic Mapping - for better transport evaluations
Commissioned by the Department for Transport, this step to step guide as been developed as an aid to the evaluation of transport interventions and as a practical resource to accompany the 'Guidance for Transport Impact Evaluations': choosing an evaluation approach to achieve better attribution and building on a key principle in this attribution guidance that most evaluation strategies would be strengthened if some initial logic mapping of a programme or project being evaluated were undertaken. The methods used in this guide were the Logic Mapping and the theory of change evaluation. The guide aimed to enable people involved in evaluation of transportation to improve self evaluation skills, promoting accountability.
Lithuanian Group Relations Conference - Innovation and Authority in Organisations: Director’s Report
The first-ever 5-day non-residential experiential inductive learning programme in Eastern Europe was conducted at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Vilnius, Lithuania, by the Group Relations Programme of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London. The programme, titled Innovation and Authority in Organisations was partially funded by the EU Education & Culture DG. The programme, attended by 40 people, was directed by Mannie Sher and staffed by an international team of group relations consultants.
The programme combined academic lectures and experiential group work and application. The lectures covered (i) organisational and systems theory, socio-technical systems theory, leadership theory and psychoanalytic theory as it applies to groups, organisations and society; and (ii) new developments in research and evaluation that emphasise collaborative processes, whole-system thinking, linking policy to context and inter-disciplinary working.
The experiential group work and application part of the programme involved the study of group behaviour and how individuals take up their roles in groups. Historical, social and political dynamics pertaining to the Lithuanian cultural context of its recent struggle for independence and integrating into Western European commercial and market conditions, were shown to be linked to the unique challenges facing Lithuanian leadership today. One member described the programme,: "…. helping me to find a sense of trust in leadership. By avoiding relationship with leadership, I may have prevented my group and myself from being innovative and effective".
The benefit of the programme included increasing a sense of emotional literacy, improving capacities for managing better in multiple roles necessary for contemporary leadership, and understanding and working with resistance to change.
A methodological paper to inform the future evaluation of CLG-funded Local Authority Preventing Violent Extremism work
This report is a methodology paper to inform the future national evaluation of CLG funded Local Authority-led PREVENT activities. It aims to "provide advice and expertise on a range of possible evaluation approaches, scoping out their strengths, weaknesses, appropriateness and feasibility for evaluating the funding as a whole." The paper covers both impact and process evaluation, considers possibilities for an economic assessment and discusses issues around indicators. Its main audience is CLG, though content and recommendations may also be useful for Local Authorities considering an evaluation of their activities funded through PREVENT.
The Effectiveness of Straight Talking Straight Talking - Listening, Hearing and Remembering
This piece of research, commissioned by Straight Talking with funding from Barking and Dagenham PCT and the Teenage Pregnancy Unit in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, did not aim to replicate the previous study but, rather, concentrated on students’ perceptions of the course and the extent to which they had heard and retained the messages from it.
Straight Talking was established in 1997 by its current Chief Executive and Manager and was registered as a charity in 1998. The charity relies on voluntary grants and donations to enable it to carry out its work. Its mission is to reduce the high rates of teenage pregnancy in the UK and to support and empower teenage parents, so that young people achieve economic wellbeing and quality of life. It raises young people’s awareness of the problems associated with teenage parenthood and educates them about the importance of delaying parenthood.
