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Professor Patrick Dunleavy, as Director of the LSE Public Policy Group (PPG), has led a research programme on digital era governance. The results of this programme, through published research, evidence to Parliament and direct consulting to government agencies (including the National Audit Office), have had a significant impact on the UK government's approach to the delivery of government services online. Specifically, the research has allowed the government to develop policies that have facilitated speedier and more effective digital changes, and increased the breadth and quality of public service delivery online.
The 2000 Freedom of Information Act was the subject of post-legislative scrutiny by the Ministry of Justice and the Commons Justice Committee in 2011 and 2012. Both the Ministry and the Justice Committee drew heavily on work by Professor Robert Hazell and colleagues in the Constitution Unit at UCL. The Unit developed the conceptual approach to evaluate the impact of FOI, and provided much of the evidence base. The evidence contributed to the decision that, despite pressure from senior political and Whitehall figures, the Act would not be significantly amended.
While indexes exist that measure the maturity of the provision of eGovernment services from the government perspective (e.g. UN eGovernment Development Index, http://unpan3.un.org/egovkb/global_reports/12report.htm), there are no reliable standards that incorporate the citizen perspective into benchmarking of government effectiveness. Brunel research has included both government and citizen assessments and, through a more holistic approach to eGovernment evaluation, has helped Turkey and other governments to improve their e-government services.
EU funded CEES (Citizen-Oriented Evaluation of e-government Services) project delivered a new evaluation model, called COBRA (Cost, Opportunity, Benefit, Risk Analysis), for benchmarking e-government services from the citizens' perspective. CEES led to COBRA's adoption by Turksat, the Turkish central e-government service provider which has 12 million citizen users — leading to e-government service improvement and more favourable citizen attitudes. E-government service providers such as ictQATAR and OMSAR (Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform) have adopted the COBRA framework to evaluate and improve their e-government services in Qatar and Lebanon respectively. COBRA has also been used in UK and Estonia leading to similar outcomes.
This research outcome enabled the launch of a new project, called I-MEET, that is extending the COBRA framework to include governments' perspectives and is being applied to Qatar, Lebanon and the UK.
Thompson is recognised as a pioneer of Open Innovation thinking within the UK public sector. He has influenced a major shift in thinking in ICT-driven public service design towards open innovation, with demonstrable impact on public and private sector business models. His 2009 paper for George Osborne, The `Thompson Report', Open Source and Open Standards (Ref 1), launched a seismic change in thinking by government policy-makers, public servants, and private sector service providers. Thompson became a Cabinet Office advisor in 2011, and continues to provide critique and contribution to parliamentary reports and policy documents across government and industry, and support implementation within local government.
This case study centres on research, which had an impact on a major piece of local government legislation. The research was a comparative study of the Local Integrity Systems (LIS) of England, Scotland and Wales. The research was commissioned by Standards for England as part of its 2010 strategic review, which was used by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in the creation of the Localism Act 2011. This Act fundamentally altered the English local integrity framework. The research has subsequently been used by major national research projects in corruption in local government.
Research conducted at the University of Bath has helped in the design and implementation of effective service recovery interventions, leading to improvements in the delivery of public services. The research has addressed an on-going question for changes to service delivery: what can be done by central government when it determines that local government performance is unacceptable? The findings of a detailed empirical study of English and Welsh central government interventions led to a typology of intervention options designed to guide actions based on the type of problem and the improvement capability available. Recommendations from the research have led to improvements in the effectiveness of Welsh Government interventions when local government service delivery is (or is at risk of) failing. The research has established a set of pragmatic operating principles for all Welsh Government interventions with corresponding benefits for policy makers, practitioners, communities and citizens.
In 1999 Ann Macintosh joined Edinburgh Napier University to establish the International Teledemocracy Centre (ITC). The centre has been very successful in delivering a wide range of services that go beyond the early vision of teledemocracy to encompass many novel forms of e-participation including e-petitioning and extensive youth participation. The centre has attracted significant funding from both UK and European sources to support research that has led to the deployment of e-participation by a number of governing bodies across Europe and led to significant participation of people in the democratic process. In particular the e-Petitioner system developed from the original ITC research and now exploited by the organisation public-i has proved highly popular and very effective with a large number of local authorities and other organisations.
Before the UK's 2010 election there were widespread fears that a hung Parliament might lead to political and economic chaos. Research conducted and published by the UCL Constitution Unit showed both the necessity for a Cabinet Manual to guide the process of forming a new government in the event of a hung Parliament, and examined the best models available. Although the full Cabinet Manual was published in 2011, the Cabinet Office published a key chapter (Elections and Government Formation) before the 2010 general election. The chapter, which drew heavily on the insights of and recommendations made in the UCL research, helped ensure in May 2010 an orderly transition to government of the first coalition in 60 years. That transition was also supported by the researchers' use of their findings to enhance understanding among professional, media and public audiences of what would happen in the event of a hung parliament.
Baseline research undertaken by University of Glasgow staff as part of the Sino-British Unemployment Insurance Project (UIP) improved unemployment insurance and employment service systems in six Chinese cities in the Liaoning and Sichuan provinces, directly benefitting a reported 25,000 recipients. The UIP pilots have since influenced unemployment insurance provision more widely in China. The research findings led to greater investment in technology, staff training and capacity development at different levels of government. This in turn has improved efficiency, enabling the Chinese government at provincial and urban levels in particular to monitor, collect and administer unemployment insurance payments and assistance.
International collaborations are now core features of higher education and international business, yet their intercultural aspects are frequently overlooked. The roll-out of global initiatives is less easily matched by the development of "global people" — people who can function effectively in culturally diverse contexts. In order to address this challenge, Spencer-Oatey and colleagues have been researching the nature of this competence and applying their insights to the development of training resources. These resources have been accessed by large numbers of professionals and practitioners throughout the world, helping them grow in intercultural understanding, adapt their behaviour, and apply their insights to training others.