Community safety

A number of organisations that we work with are involved in safeguarding communities, ranging from national and local government programmes, to grassroots projects that aim to improve safety and other key local community outcomes.

We are experienced in providing research, evaluation and developmental support to all types of organisations involved in improving community safety. We are also currently on the research and evaluation frameworks for both the Scottish Government Community Safety Unit and Scottish Prison Service.

Other examples of our work include:

• Scottish Police Authority  – conducting research with police officers, examining their use of stop and search procedures, and follow-up work with the public to explore their views and experiences of stop and search; and

• CashBack for Communities – evaluations of CashBack-funded programmes, a Scottish Government initiative in which the proceeds of crime are used to improve outcomes for young people in Scotland. We are currently undertaking another three CashBack for Communities evaluations – for Basketball Scotland, Scottish Rugby and the Scottish Football Association.

Community development

Sometimes communities need support as they look to strengthen their approaches to social, economic or environmental development. We have experience of working alongside communities to help them prioritise work, providing sensitive and impartial facilitation of consultation events or reviewing the impact of initiatives.  

Some of our recent work includes supporting four local authorities and their partners to develop, evaluate and strengthen their LEADER programmes and develop strategies for the new LEADER programme (2014-2020). This has also involved assisting other rural economic development initiatives, including developing a local LEADER development strategy for fisheries through consultation.

Our research and consultancy frequently focuses on work aiming to improve life chances and supporting young people to achieve their potential.

We work across diverse age groups and life stages within this theme, ranging from early years, through primary schools and secondary schools, to diversionary and employment focused programmes.

Some of our recent work includes:

• Education Scotland – explored the impact of bureaucracy in primary and secondary schools on teachers’ responsibilities, and their work with children and parents, in relation to policy change and interpretation;

• Scottish Book Trust – evaluation of the Bookbug for the Home Programme, which trains early years professionals to introduce singing, rhyming and book sharing in their work with vulnerable families;

• YouthLink Scotland – explored young people’s perspectives of Activity Agreements, which are personal programmes for young people who may not, without additional support, make a successful transition to work, further education or training.

Employability has been one of our areas of expertise and interest since we were first set up over 20 years ago, and we continue to be one of the go-to companies for support in this field. We have significant experience of evaluating employability programmes across the public and third sectors, at both local and national level, developing employability strategies for local areas, and undertaking research to inform programme design.

Some of our recent work includes:

• Scottish Funding Council – jointly commissioned to evaluate Learning to Work 2 (LTW2), a programme which explored different models of student placements in the workplace.
• Museums Galleries Scotland – asked us to evaluate its flagship internship programme designed to increase diversity and capacity within Scotland’s museums and galleries.
• Clackmannanshire Local Employability Partnership – jointly appointed to support the LEP to develop a new employability strategy for the area.

A large number of the organisations we work with aim to improve the social and financial welfare of specific groups or communities. This sector is growing rapidly, partly due to recent legislative and policy changes.

We have experience in supporting both public and voluntary sector organisations to respond to increased demand for services, implement new programmes and evaluate the impact of their work. We are also currently appointed as a contractor on the Wheatley Group’s Consultancy Services Framework.

Some of our work includes:

• A local authority – explored options to help housing customers manage their finances; including surveys and interviews with customers, service staff and managers, best practice review and an options appraisal workshop;

• Wheatley Group – evaluated its Eat Well food poverty and financial inclusion pilot. We compared the impact it had made on customer outcomes, wellbeing and financial gain, and recommended options for the potential continuation and roll-out of the Eat Well approach;

• Scotcash – feasibility study for to establish the economic, social and business cases for extending provision of its services to include internet and telephone services.

Arts, culture and sport form a major part of the public and voluntary landscape, supporting communities to be stronger and healthier and creating large numbers of employment and voluntary opportunities.

We have expertise in supporting organisations working in these sectors with bespoke research, analysis and evaluation.

Some of our recent work includes:

• Cashback for Communities – currently working with Basketball Scotland, Scottish Rugby Union and Scottish Football Association to evaluate the impact of their cashback-funded programmes on young people and communities;

• Scottish Prison Arts Network (SPAN) – undertook a feasibility study on the establishment of a mentoring scheme supporting the work of artists working in the criminal  justice sector;

• Scottish Library and Information Council – research to understand what the public in Scotland think about public libraries, and what they want to see from libraries in the future; and research on the role of volunteers in libraries;

• Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) and Scottish Storytelling Centre (SSC) – evaluated its Living Voices pilot, a participatory arts model for engaging with older audiences using spoken word (storytelling, poetry and song) and reminiscence.