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University of Glasgow research advanced a new conceptual and practical approach to housing systems analysis used by local authorities across the breadth of the UK. The research was instrumental in the drafting of new legislation which required all local authorities to produce evidence-based housing strategies founded upon the approach developed through the Glasgow research. As well as forming the basis of Good Practice Guides used by housing professionals and practitioners, the research underpinned extensive training programmes for housing planners and policy-makers in all 4 countries of the UK.
University of Reading research led to the development of one of the key tools for housing policy analysis used within the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and related bodies between 2005 and 2013. In particular, the project, which produced 14 publications and reports, has had a major impact on the analysis of policy and subsequent policy decisions concerning housing supply and land-use planning, housing tenure, international migration and the effects of the credit crunch.
The practice-based research outputs contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge in the area of low-energy affordable housing which was evidenced through design outputs, case studies government publications.
The work has been undertaken in response to governmental concerns regarding the future provision at a national level of an energy efficient, affordable, good quality housing stock. Accordingly, the underpinning approach has been widely disseminated to government departments, public and private housing organisations. The design concepts and principles have been adopted by housing providers, and have become a point of reference for those working within the field of low-energy sustainable housing design.
Professor Iain Ramsay's research into personal insolvency and regulation of consumer credit has had a far-reaching, significant impact, which has been felt in four major ways. First and most recently, Ramsay has drawn on his published research to co-author a highly influential World Bank report, which forms the foundation for future policy in this area and has already been relied upon in the Colombian national reform process, with India and South Africa likewise proposing to use it to frame their domestic reform discussions. Second, a number of influential UK governmental and non-governmental committees (including the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, National Audit Office and Office of Fair Trading) have each drawn on Ramsay's research. Third, Ramsay has been invited to advise other national governments and commissions (including Ireland, and Sweden), as well as acting as the UK rapporteur on EU studies (e.g. of interest rate ceilings). Finally, he has drawn on his research to advise NGOs in Europe, Latin America and at the international level (including The Centre for Responsible Credit; Consumers International; the International Protection of Consumers Committee of the International Law Association; and Brasilcon).
In 1996 Byatt-Smith, Lacey and Parker (all Maxwell Institute, MI) and co-workers developed a mathematical model of housing allocation to examine the impact of housing policies on homelessness in England and Wales. The model was subsequently adapted to the Scottish context by Lacey and Waugh (MI). Since 2008, it has been used by the Scottish Government to help inform its housing policy, enabling it to target development funding for new build to areas of greatest homelessness need and meet its 2012 homelessness commitment. The model has provided quantitative underpinning for major policy changes enacted in Scotland during the period from 2008: the right to buy public-sector housing has been limited, and regions where private rented sector housing has the potential to provide housing for homeless households have been identified. This has resulted in a marked increase of public-sector house builds between 2005/06 (6 starts) and 2009/10 (538 starts). The research informed the allocation of £644M in 2009/10 contributing to a 14% reduction in homelessness in Scotland between 2008/09 and 2012/13.
Alliance research has been used by the UK and Scottish governments to direct more of the £10bn p.a. public investment in affordable and social housing towards higher demand growth regions. It has produced a range of affordability-based housing needs models which have been commended as exemplars of good practice guidance for local authorities and adopted by industry consultancies. One tool, used to assess policy options in the context of HM Treasury's 2010 Spending Review, has been described by the Department for Communities and Local Government as "invaluable" and stimulated the development of an equivalent model for New Zealand, influencing investment by the state housing agency, Housing New Zealand, in assets worth $15bn. The research has also led to the cost-effective targeting of low cost and shared home ownership programmes and stronger use of planning powers to deliver affordable housing across the UK and Ireland.
Research conducted by Durham University on the reconciliation of free speech with rights of privacy and reputation has significantly affected contemporary law and policy around the law of privacy, media injunctions and libel reform. Specifically, it has:
(1) resulted in a substantial contribution to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Libel Working Group and hence to the Defamation Bill 2012 which followed (now the Defamation Act 2013);
(2) strongly influenced the report of Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights on the human rights aspects of that Bill;
(3) influenced a major parliamentary inquiry on privacy;
(4) helped change Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidelines on prosecuting the media for privacy-related offences including phone-hacking;
(5) been used in argument by an NGO intervening in two important cases before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
Home's continuing research on planning and accommodation for Gypsies/Travellers originated as far back as 1980, and contributed key evidence to the Parliamentary Committee in 2004 leading to a statutory requirement on local authorities to undertake local Gypsy/Traveller Accommodation Assessments (GTAAs). The research-based methodology pioneered in the Cambridge sub-region GTAA has become best practice for GTAAs in the current REF period, and in 2011 media coverage of the high-profile Dale Farm evictions drew upon his research through media contributions by him (in TV, radio and newspapers).
This research has made a sustained and continuing impact on the development and application of the substantive criminal law, including mens rea and general defences, and especially in the areas of complicity and homicide, in terms of
i) development of the law by the appellate courts;
ii) application of the law by practitioners; and
iii) government policy as to the reform of the law of murder and complicity.
Influential work on insurance law by Professor Rob Merkin led directly to the repeal of the outmoded and increasingly unpopular Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930. With its predecessor criticised for its demands on time and costs, a new Act made it simpler, faster and cheaper for a third-party claimant to recover compensation from an insurer without instituting proceedings against the insured. Merkin not only drew policymakers' attention to the old Act's defects but provided a detailed basis on which to formulate its successor, which earned Royal Assent in 2010.