OPM

When it comes to meeting expectations for quality improvement and productivity gains, NHS leaders need timely and robust evidence to make informed choices and to justify difficult decisions. OPM’s team of social researchers, analysts and evaluators offers research capacity to gather the evidence you need, to find out ‘what works’ and ‘how things work’, and to mine your own data for insights. This flyer describes our approach.

Tackling exclusion, isolation and inequalities are all central to building sustainable communities that are cohesive, integrated and resilient to violent extremism. We have worked extensively in this area, for example with the Home Office, Communities and Local Government, DCSF, Government Offices, the Homes and Communities Agency and many local authorities, helping them find ways to create more cohesive communities.

An OPM study commissioned by the Audit Commission on behalf of the Joint Inspectorates. The Audit Commission, on behalf of the six partner inspectorates involved in the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA), commissioned OPM to: estimate the costs of CAA incurred by local authorities as a sector in complying with its inspection and audit requirements in its first year; and, compare CAA year one costs with costs incurred by local authorities under the previous Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) regime. This costing study is part of a wider evaluation of year one of CAA. This report summarises the key findings of the study.

In 2009 OPM celebrated its 20th anniversary. Some things have not changed over that period. We are still entirely focused on helping to achieve social results and on working with people who share a determination to improve the well-being of the communities and clients they serve. This annual review summarises the work we have done over the past year. It highlights some of our projects, particularly our work and research on efficiency, partnerships and commissioning, our public interest activities, and our engagement work with communities and young people.

The Office for Public Management (OPM) was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to conduct an evaluation of children’s services interventions in five local authorities: Walsall, Waltham Forest, Swindon, North East Lincolnshire, and Plymouth. The five local authorities each had very different contexts, performance issues, partners, and models of intervention. They were chosen on the basis of having some basic similarities - they involved a partnership with another organisation, and would have been the chosen solution here because of the scale of concern and need to inject additional capacity or capability.

Now, more than ever, it is critical for the different tiers of local government to collaborate with each other. Financial pressures, requirements to deliver seamless customer service and a new focus on outcomes mean that local authorities need to find ways to work together productively.

This document links to the full report on an external website. This report into Cohesion for Sustainable Communities sets out to define what community cohesion should mean to sustainable communities practitioners, exploring the gaps in current training in around this issue, identifying the skills that those practitioners need to facilitate greater cohesion in their localities, and resulting in a learning module to help them understand the contribution they can make. This report was commissioned by the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) and undertaken by the Office for Public Management (OPM).