PPIW - 2016 English with Hyperlinks

Using Evidence 

to Improve Policy 

The Public Policy Institute for Wales 

Second Annual Report

Foreword 

We are delighted to bring you the second annual report from 

the Public Policy Institute for Wales. Over the last 12 months 

the Institute has produced excellent work on many of the public 

policy challenges in Wales and has attracted growing interest from 

policy makers and researchers across the UK and internationally. 

Adrian Webb 

Chair 

Ruth Hall 

Deputy Chair 

We have continued to respond directly 

to Welsh Government Ministers’ evidence 

needs. We have now undertaken over 60 

assignments requested by them and by 

working with leading experts from across 

the UK, and beyond, we have been 

able to provide timely, policy relevant, 

independent analysis and advice. 

In addition, thanks to funding from 

the Economic and Social Research 

Council, we have developed significant 

programmes of research and 

engagement on three sets of issues 

which are priorities for the Welsh 

Government as a whole – how to tackle 

poverty, the future of our public services, 

and the powers and policy levers 

available to policy makers in Wales. 

From the outset we have been 

committed to publishing our work 

so that it is available to everyone 

with an interest in Welsh public life. 

In the last year we have gone a step 

further by actively disseminating our 

work and stimulating policy debate 

via our website, blogs, social media 

and events. We have also continued 

to develop a range of methods of 

drawing on independent expertise 

including evidence reviews, ministerial 

briefings and expert workshops. 

Workshops in recent months have 

explored what works in increasing 

employability, meeting older peoples’ 

housing needs, de-escalating 

interventions for adolescents and 

commissioning rail services. 

Central to our success has been our 

ability to work effectively with the civil 

service and with a wide range 

of partners in Wales and beyond. 

As part of the What Works Network, 

we are able to ensure that Wales makes 

the most of the evidence that they are 

generating, and we were delighted 

to host the meeting of What Works 

Council in Cardiff in October. In the 

last year we have also strengthened 

our links with a wide range of other 

organisations and individuals and we 

want to express our thanks to them, 

to our funders, and to the growing 

network of experts who have enabled 

the Public Policy Institute for Wales 

to achieve such a significant impact 

within such a short space of time. 

We look forward to our third year and 

to continuing to fulfil a unique role, 

working closely with, but independently 

of, the Welsh Government to provide 

Ministers with access to independent 

evidence that helps to enhance policy 

making and delivery on behalf of the 

people of Wales. 

2 | PPIW

Our Mission 

The Public Policy Institute for 

Wales is a unique collaboration 

between the Economic and 

Social Research Council, Welsh 

Government, a consortium 

of research led universities, 

and independent research 

organisations. Our mission 

is to improve policy making 

and delivery by generating 

independent authoritative 

analysis and advice on the key 

challenges facing public policy 

makers in Wales. 

The Institute: 

• Supports Ministers to identify their 

evidence needs; 

• Works with experts to provide 

authoritative independent analysis 

and advice; 

• Raises awareness of the Welsh 

Government’s evidence needs; 

• Helps researchers to increase the 

impact of their work with policy 

makers; and 

• Facilitates learning between 

countries so that Wales benefits from 

and contributes to international 

evidence about ‘what works’. 

The Institute is an exciting policy 

innovation. As far as we can tell, 

the concept of an independent institute 

working directly with Ministers, and 

alongside the civil service, to strengthen 

the links between government and 

external expertise is new not just in Wales 

but internationally, and this approach 

is already proving its worth and playing 

an important role in strengthening the 

‘evidence ecosystem’ in Wales. 

Our Work 

From the outset there has been 

a great deal of interest in the 

Institute and strong demand 

from Ministers for our work. In 

our first two years we have taken 

on more than 60 assignments 

in response to our discussions 

with Ministers about evidence 

needs in their portfolios. We 

have worked with every Minister, 

drawing on expertise from 

across the UK and beyond to 

provide them with timely and 

practical analysis and advice. 

In addition we have also undertaken 

work on significant issues that have 

been identified as priorities for the 

Welsh Government as a whole. 

Our ability to resource this additional 

work has depended on attracting 

external funding from beyond the 

Welsh Government and we have been 

delighted to receive awards from the 

Economic and Social Research Council 

that have enabled us to: 

• Commission and oversee a 

programme of research into 

tackling poverty; 

• Lead a programme of research and 

knowledge exchange on the 

Welsh Government’s powers and 

policy levers; and 

• Provide a strong link between the 

What Works Network and policy 

makers in Wales. 

The work that we have 

undertaken in our second year 

has encompassed a wide range 

topics. Examples include: 

PPIW | 3

Business and Economy 

We worked with Professor Peter Tyler from Cambridge 

University, the UK’s leading expert on enterprise 

zone policy, to review the governance of enterprise 

zones in Wales. Peter conducted an evidence review 

and we interviewed the chairs of enterprise zones, 

as well as facilitating a workshop with the chairs and 

Welsh Government officials. His report ‘Governing 

for Success’ made a series of recommendations to the 

Minister for Economy, Science and Transport on the 

future governance of enterprise zones, emphasising in 

particular that each zone needed to be embedded in a 

longer-term economic development strategy tailored to 

local constraints and opportunities. 

We produced a report for the Minister for Economy, 

Science and Transport which set out detailed 

recommendations for maximising the economic 

benefits associated with Cardiff International and 

St Athan Airports. The analysis, which was conducted by 

Chris Cain from Northpoint Aviation, a leading authority 

on the airline industry, assessed the economic impact of 

similar sized airports in other countries and concluded 

that Cardiff and St Athan have the potential to provide a 

very significant boost to key sectors of the Welsh economy 

provided that Ministers put in place a robust long term 

strategy to achieve this which is backed by an effective, 

well-managed and properly resourced delivery plan. 


Education, Skills and Employment 

We produced advice on what works in building 

the emotional resilience of children in primary 

schools. Working with Professor Robin Banerjee 

and Professor Colleen McLaughlin at the 

University of Sussex, we produced a synthesis of 

research and policy evaluations, and made a series of 

recommendations as to how the Welsh Government 

might develop a strategy in this area. 

We worked with Professor Christopher Day from 

Nottingham University, a leading education 

expert, to analyse the potential for Continuous 

Professional Development (CPD) to help close 

the educational attainment gap. A review of the 

evidence of the causes of under-attainment showed 

that CPD has a role to play but is not sufficient on its 

own. Our report recommended piloting a range of 

school-based strategies to close the attainment gap to 

test the effectiveness of different approaches. 

Working with the Centre for Economic and Social 

Inclusion, we reviewed the current operation of the Work 

Programme in Wales. We concluded that there would 

be significant benefits in devolving responsibility for the 

programme to Wales. This will enable it to be tailored 

to the specific challenges of enabling the long term 

unemployed to get back into work and to pay particular 

attention to the Employment Support Allowance 

claimants and the physical and mental health obstacles 

that deter people from returning to employment. 

We published an analysis of how to foster high quality 

vocational Further Education in Wales based on work 

by Professor David James from Cardiff University and 

Professor Lorna Unwin from the Institute of Education. 

Our report makes practical recommendations which 

have been widely welcomed by colleges. It emphasised 

the importance of staff who combine knowledge and 

teaching skills, and the need for colleges, training providers 

and employers to work together to ensure that training 

equips learners for available employment opportunities. 


Health and Social Care 

Working with Pippa Anderson and Kateryna 

Onishchenko from Swansea University’s 

Centre for Health Economics, we published rapid 

evidence reviews of international experiences of 

prioritisation of elective surgery and conditional 

entitlements to healthcare. Our reports concluded 

that approaches tried elsewhere do not offer simple 

solutions to the funding gap in the Welsh NHS 

and evidence from other countries suggested that 

conditional entitlements have an adverse effect on the 

poorest households. 

We published an analysis of the resilience of the care 

home market in Wales by the Institute of Public 

Care. The report by Professor Keith Moultrie and 

Nic Rattle concluded that Wales is less dependent 

than England on large scale providers and so is less 

vulnerable to a Southern Cross style crisis. However 

the number of sole owners approaching retirement 

raises questions about future provision in some parts 

of the country and we recommended a range of 

practical measures which the Welsh Government, local 

authorities and others can take to address this. 


Housing and Communities 

Working with experts from University of Cambridge’s 

Centre for Housing and Planning Research, we 

analysed future need and demand for housing in 

Wales. The report highlighted the need to return to 

rates of house building not seen for almost 20 years 

and a significant increase in the rate of growth of 

affordable housing. 

We published an evidence review on the current 

state of older people’s housing in Wales and 

recommendations on how to meet the housing 

needs of this group. Our report of recommendations, 

written by Dr Sarah Hillcoat-Nalletemby from 

Swansea University, calls on the Welsh Government to 

implement short term measures and adopt a long term 

strategy to provide ‘future-proofed’ and ‘age-sustainable’ 

housing solutions to tackle the growing housing 

shortage facing older people. 

We worked with Professor Christine Whitehead and 

Kath Scanlon from the London School of Economics 

to analyse the changing role of the private rented 

sector in Wales, which more than doubled in size 

between 2001 and 2013. We also published two reports 

on homelessness: a feasibility study by Tamsin Stirling 

considered how to evaluate the contribution that the 

Supporting People Programme makes to tackling 

homelessness in Wales, and Anna Whalen analysed 

ways of improving provision for young care leavers 

who are at risk of becoming homeless. 

We published a review of the impact of 

welfare reforms on housing policy in Wales, 

concluding that the changes will hit the most 

deprived communities and most vulnerable groups 

hardest, and recommending commissioning research 

to shed light on the ways in which housing policies 

could help mitigate the impacts of welfare reform. 


Public Services 

We hosted a lecture and published a think piece by 

Dr Barry Quirk, one of the UK’s most accomplished local 

authority chief executives, on high performing councils. 

We produced an analysis of the strategies that English 

councils have developed to cope with budget cuts. 

Our report concludes that councils in Wales can learn 

from experience in England and need to look beyond 

short-term cost cutting measures and embrace more 

far reaching service transformation. 

We published a report by the Chartered Institute of 

Public Finance and Accountancy which assesses the 

feasibility of comparing council performance across 

the UK. 

The report identifies common indicators of expenditure 

and performance and argues that governments should 

work together to develop comparators of overall 

council performance. 

Working with Dr Clive Grace, we provided advice on 

how the Welsh Government might improve the use 

of Impact Assessments (IAs). Identifying the need to 

act on both the structures and the culture surrounding 

IAs, the advice recommended a series of steps that the 

Government might take to reduce their administrative 

burden while also increasing their value. 


Natural Resources and 

Sustainable Development 

We worked with Charles Seaford, one of the UK’s 

leading experts on well-being, to provide advice 

to Ministers on the development of the national 

indicators to measure progress in terms of the 

seven goals set out in the Well-being of Future 

Generations (Wales) Act. We set out some design 

principles for effective indicators, and a framework for 

developing an indicator set based on the goals. 

We conducted a rapid review of the economic 

benefits of ‘going green’ for businesses, concluding 

that there would be value in further analysis to 

establish the circumstances in which large businesses 

benefit from ‘going green’ and whether small and 

medium sized enterprises can realise similar 

financial gains. 

We worked with Professor Tim Lang from 

City University London and Professor Terry Marsden 

and Professor Kevin Morgan from Cardiff University 

to provide advice on the Welsh Government’s food 

policy to the Deputy Minister for Farming and Food. 

Professor Marsden and Professor Morgan wrote a 

report reviewing the 2010 Food Strategy and the 2014 

Action Plan proposing 15 recommendations to address 

concerns in the current policy framework. 


In addition to assignments relating to particular ministerial 

portfolios, we have undertaken work which is relevant to several 

ministers or in some cases to the whole cabinet. Examples include: 

Childcare policy options 

We analysed the impact of extending government support 

for childcare. Working with Dr Gillian Paull, one of the UK’s 

leading experts on policy relating to maternal employment, 

childcare and poverty, we modelled the impact of 

alternative forms of childcare provision for three to four 

year olds in Wales; looking at how these would affect both 

maternal employment and poverty levels, and the likely 

fiscal impact. 

Early intervention 

We published a report by Professor Leon Feinstein, 

Director of Evidence at the Early Intervention Foundation, 

which recommended ways of quantifying the benefits 

of early intervention programmes in Wales. Leon argued 

that Wales provides a model of what can be achieved by a 

devolved administration, which English regions and others 

might build on. 

Policy making in small countries 

We hosted research on policy making in smaller countries 

undertaken by Tamlyn Rabley with funding from a 

prestigious William Plowden Fellowship. Tamlyn presented 

her analysis at a Public Policy Institute for Wales lecture 

attended by trustees of the Plowden Fellowship, senior officials 

including the Permanent Secretary, academics and other 

commentators. Her report is published on our website and is 

recommended reading for all policy makers in Wales. 

Tackling poverty 

Over the last year we have facilitated a programme of 

research on tackling poverty. Working with researchers 

at Aberystwyth and Warwick Universities, University of 

Cambridge, and the Young Foundation, that have been 

funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, 

we have facilitated detailed analysis of: 

• Alternatives to high interest credit; 

• Ways to harness growth sectors to create 

employment opportunities which have the potential 

to help reduce poverty; 

• The role of which housing providers can play in 

tackling poverty experienced by young people; and 

• Innovative approaches to analysing poverty. 

We have also undertaken a review of the causes of rural 

poverty and interventions to reduce it. 

Power and policy levers 

The Economic and Social Research Council has funded 

us to undertake research on the powers and policy levers 

available the Welsh Government and we launched this work 

in November. 


Emerging themes 

Although our work has covered a diverse range of topics, there have 

been a number of recurrent themes: 

The quality of the evidence base 

Evidence about the effectiveness (and particularly the 

cost-effectiveness) of government interventions is 

underdeveloped. This is true internationally, not just in 

Wales, and the development of the What Works Network 

and other similar initiatives is a response to this. The scope 

for large-scale, costly, independent evaluations is limited in a 

time of constrained budgets, but there is a real need to ensure 

that data and evidence are generated and used to inform 

policy and practice. New forms of data, and new approaches 

to developing and implementing policy offer potential, partial 

‘solutions’ to this; but governments need to carefully consider 

how to deploy limited research and evaluation budgets. 

Vertical and horizontal coordination 

The question we are asked most often is ‘what works?’ 

In some instances there is sufficient evidence to suggest 

which programmes or interventions are more or less 

effective. But it is striking that in almost all cases, the answer 

lies in acting simultaneously and in a coordinated manor 

across all relevant domains and using all available levers. 

This is especially true where a government is seeking to 

effect change across a wide range of organisations or seeking 

to tackle something complex, such as trying to change 

individuals’ behaviour. In such cases, a government needs to 

ensure that it is coordinating internally (across departments 

and across the levers available to it), but then also seeks 

to steer other actors in such a way as to ensure that the 

system is coordinated in its efforts. This might also mean, for 

example, devolving responsibility for choosing programmes or 

interventions to local actors, but thinking carefully about its role 

in, for example, developing networks, ensuring consistency in 

data gathering, and fostering peer-to-peer learning. 

Improving practice 

Although our work is directed at the policy development 

process, it frequently highlights the importance of ‘practice’. 

Successful policy often depends upon successful practice. 

Practitioners – teachers, doctors, social workers – need to be 

intelligent users of evidence, learning from each other and 

from developments elsewhere. More than this, they need to be 

engaging in a process of continuous learning; reflecting and 

learning from their own practice. This is already happening in 

some cases, but not in a consistent way. More focus is needed 

on how to foster this. 


Our Expert Network 

Wales 

Aberystwyth University 

Academi Wales 

Bevan Foundation 

Cardiff University 

Care & Repair Cymru 

Chartered Institute of Public Finance 

and Accountancy 

Children in Wales 

Children’s Commission for Wales 

Cwm Taf Health Board 

Estyn 

Hendre Housing Association 

Newport High School 

Older People’s Commission for Wales 

Qualifications Wales 

RSA 

Swansea University 

Tamsin Stirling Associates 

University of South Wales 

University of Wales, Trinity St David 

Voices from Care 

Wales Public Services 2025 

Y Lab 

Youth Justice Board Cymru 

England 

Anna Whalen Consulting 

British Association for Counselling 

and Psychotherapy 

Centre for Economic Social 

Inclusion London 

Coventry University 

City University London 

Durham University 

Early Intervention Foundation 

Education Endowment Foundation 

Frontier Economics 

Imogen Blood Consulting 

Institute of Public Care, 

Oxford Brookes University 

Joseph Rowntree Foundation 

Lewisham Council 

London School of Economics 

Manchester University 

McCarthy & Stone Retirement Lifestyles 

Middlesex University 

National Association of Pastoral Care 

in Education 

Nesta 

New Economics Foundation 

Newman University Birmingham 

Northpoint Aviation Consulting 

Old Bell 3 

The Health Foundation 

The Young Foundation 

Transport for Quality of Life 

University College London 

University of Birmingham 

University of Cambridge 

University of Leeds 

University of London 

University of Nottingham 

University of Sheffield 

University of Southampton 

University of Sussex 

University of Warwick 

University of York 

Urban Transport Group 

Scotland 

Edinburgh Napier University 

Scottish Government 

University of Edinburgh 

University of Glasgow 

Transport for Scotland 

Internationally 

Caisse Nationale D’assurance Veillesse, 

Paris, France 

DIW Berlin, Berlin, Germany 

Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland 

Erasmus University Rotterdam, 

Netherlands 


Our Partners 

In addition to experts, we have worked with a wide range of 

other partners. As a member of the What Works Network, 

the Public Policy Institute for Wales provides a direct link 

between What Works Centres and Welsh Government 

Ministers and officials. This has helped broaden our access 

to expertise, to champion the interests of Welsh policy 

makers among the centres and to ensure that the Welsh 

Government is able to access the results of the centres’ work. 

We have undertaken joint work with a number of What 

Works Centres and hosted the What Works Council in Cardiff 

which provided valuable opportunities for the Directors of 

What Works Centres to meet with the Permanent Secretary, 

the Welsh Government’s Board and a range of other senior 

officials. We were invited to assist with the development 

of What Works Scotland and are members of the Centre’s 

Advisory Board. We have facilitated workshops in Wales with 

other What Works Centres and advised the Northern Ireland 

Executive on the potential benefits of establishing its own 

What Works Centre. 

We have also actively supported a range of new initiatives 

that have strengthened the evidence ecosystem here in 

Wales, including: the launch of Y Lab (a joint initiative 

between NESTA and Cardiff University); the Exchange 

programme sponsored by the Alliance for Useful Evidence 

and Joseph Rowntree Foundation; and plans to establish a 

new Social Science Research Park. 


Our Board and Executive Group 

The Institute’s work is overseen by an independent Board of Governors of 

distinguished individuals who have worked at the highest levels in universities, 

think tanks, the civil service and Economic Social Research Council in Wales 

and beyond: 

Professor Sir Adrian Webb 

Former Vice-Chancellor 

Glamorgan University 

(Chair) 

Dr Ruth Hall 

Former Chief Medical Officer for Wales 

(Deputy Chair) 

Professor George Boyne 

Pro-Vice Chancellor 


Professor Alice Brown CBE 

Chair of the Scottish Funding Council 

Professor Gerry Holtham 

Former Director of the Institute for 

Public Policy Research 

Will Hutton 

Principal, Hertford College Oxford and 

Chair of the Big Innovation Centre 

Phil Sooben 

Director of Policy, Resources and 

Communications and Deputy Chief 

Executive at the Economic and Social 

Research Council 

Ceridwen Roberts OBE 

Department of Social Policy and 

Intervention, Oxford University 

Dame Jane Roberts DBE 

Former leader of Camden Council and 

Chair of the Councillor’s Commission 

The Board safeguards the Institute’s 

independence and ensures the quality 

of its work. 

We have also benefitted hugely 

from the advice and expertise of our 

Executive Group which comprises 

leading researchers from the Institute’s 

founding institutions. They provide 

guidance on the content of our work 

plans and on sources of expertise 

within their organisations: 

Dr Myfanwy Davies 

Senior Lecturer in Social Policy 

Bangor University 

Professor Catherine Farrell 

Professor of Public Management 

University of South Wales 

Professor Philip Murphy 

Department of Labour Economics 

Swansea University 

Professor Laura McAllister 

Co-Director, the Heseltine Institute 

of Public Policy and Practice 

Liverpool University 

Professor Gareth Rees 

Research Professor at the Wales 

Institute of Social and Economic 

Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) 


Dr Victoria Winckler 

Director, the Bevan Foundation 

Professor Mike Woods 

Co-Director of the Wales Institute of 

Social and Economic Research, 

Data and Methods, (WISERD) 

Aberystwyth University.

PPIW - 2016 English with Hyperlinks

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