What Works Network, UK

Introduction This initiative aims to improve the way government and other organisations create, share and use (or ‘generate, transmit and adopt’) high quality evidence for decision-making. It supports more effective and efficient services across the public sector at national and local levels. Read the What Works Network: Five Years On report, published in January 2018. An earlier report, What Works? Evidence for decision-makers, was published in November 2014 What Works is based on the principle that good decision-making should be informed by the best available evidence. If evidence is not available, decision-makers should use high quality methods to find out what works. What Works is a world first: it’s the first time any government has taken a national approach to prioritising the use of evidence in decision-making. The What Works Network The network is made up of 7 independent What Works Centres and 2 affiliate members. Together these centres cover policy areas which receive public spending of more than £200 billion. What Works Centres are different from standard research centres. They enable policy makers, commissioners and practitioners to make decisions based upon strong evidence of what works and to provide cost-efficient, useful services. The centres help to ensure that thorough, high quality, independently assessed evidence shapes decision-making at every level, by: collating existing evidence on how effective policy programmes and practices are producing high quality synthesis reports and systematic reviews in areas where they do not currently exist assessing how effective policies and practices are against an agreed set of outcomes sharing findings in an accessible way encouraging practitioners, commissioners and policymakers to use these findings to inform their decisions View the What Works Network membership requirements. The current What Works Centres are: What Works Centre Policy area National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Health and social care Sutton Trust/Educational Endowment Foundation Educational achievement College of Policing What Works Centre for Crime Reduction Crime reduction Early Intervention Foundation Early intervention What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth (hosted by LSE, Arup, Centre for Cities) Local economic growth Centre for Ageing Better Improved quality of life for older people What Works Centre for Wellbeing Wellbeing Affiliate: Public Policy Institute for Wales Affiliate: What Works Scotland The Centres are funded by a combination of government and non-government sources including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Big Lottery Fund. The What Works National Adviser, Dr David Halpern, and his team in the Cabinet Office promote and support the independent What Works Network. What Works across government In addition to working with the What Works Centres, the initiative supports government to make policy in a fundamentally different way: deliberately testing variations in approach, vigorously evaluating, and stopping things that don’t work. This includes: running a Cross-Government Trial Advice Panel, with experts from across academia and government providing a free service for all civil servants to help test whether policies and programmes are working sharing findings from the What Works Centres across government and promoting discussion on ‘what works’ supporting a civil service with the skills, capability and commitment to use evidence effectively helping policy makers to make informed judgements on investment in services that lead to impact and value for money for citizens More about the What Works Centres National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) NICE was founded in 1999. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health. NICE has gained a worldwide reputation for its pioneering use of clinical and cost-effectiveness methodologies to produce authoritative advice and guidelines. The What Works Network was first envisaged as a ‘NICE for social policy’. The cost-effectiveness aspect of What Works was largely modelled on the NICE technology appraisal. Sutton Trust/Education Endowment Foundation The Sutton Trust, in partnership with Impetus Trust founded the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in 2011. It received a founding grant of £125 million from the Department for Education. The EEF aims to raise the attainment of children facing disadvantage by: identifying and funding promising educational innovations that address the needs of disadvantaged children in primary and secondary schools in England evaluating these innovations to extend and secure the evidence on what works, and can be made to work on a larger scale encouraging schools, government, charities, and others to apply evidence and adopt innovations that are found to be effective Since its launch, the EEF has commissioned 100 evaluations and committed £57 million of funding to innovative and scalable projects. In total, EEF projects are working in 4,900 schools and reaching 620,000 pupils across England. The Sutton Trust-EEF Teaching and Learning toolkit assesses the cost, impact and evidence strength of a range of educational approaches, based on over 10,000 research studies. College of Policing What Works Centre for Crime Reduction The College of Policing became a What Works Centre in March 2013 and works in partnership with a consortium of 8 universities. It is co-funded by the College of Policing and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The centre aims to map the evidence on crime reduction and encourage use of evidence in practice. The centre: identifies and labels existing research evidence reviews on crime reduction interventions and summarises these in an online Crime Reduction Toolkit. This toolkit allows users to weigh up evidence on the impact, cost, and implementation of different interventions to inform crime reduction efforts conducts and commissions primary research on high priority crime reduction topics in consultation with a wide range of practitioners and decision-makers supports and encourages greater research collaborations between police, academics and other criminal justice agencies and partners with a shared aim of reducing crime publishes and manages a research map providing open access to summaries of ongoing relevant policing and crime reduction research builds capability and understanding of the evidence base through a range of learning and development opportunities for practitioners and decision-makers Early Intervention Foundation The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF)) champions and supports the use of effective early intervention to improve the lives of children and young people at risk of experiencing poor outcomes. EIF focuses on promoting and enabling an evidence-based approach to early intervention related to the developmental issues that can arise throughout a child’s life, from birth to the age of 18, including their physical, cognitive, behavioural and social and emotional development and wellbeing. As a result, EIF’s work is relevant to a wide range of policy and service areas, including health, education, families and policing. As set out in its strategy for 2018 - 2023, EIF’s working priorities are to: Make the case for prioritising and investing in early intervention; Generate evidence, and supporting others throughout the sector to generate new evidence; and Use that evidence to change policy and practice. The EIF Guidebook summarises key features of around 100 early intervention programmes, providing information on the strength of evidence for a programme’s effectiveness, the range of child outcomes identified via past evaluations, the aims and methodology of the programme, and relative costs. What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth Established in October 2013, the centre is led by Professor Henry Overman at the London School of Economics (LSE), in a consortium with the Centre for Cities and Arup. It is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for Communities and Local Government and the Economic and Social Research Council. The What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth aims to significantly improve the use of evidence in the design and delivery of policies for local economic growth and employment, leading to more effective policies and policymaking. The centre’s approach includes: evidence reviews: review the existing evidence base relating to economic development policy areas, drawing out findings that are backed by systematic, rigorous evaluation capacity building: work with policymakers and delivery partners to build their capacity to incorporate measures of policy impact into their programmes at the earliest stage demonstration projects: design demonstration projects in partnership with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and local councils to address particular gaps in the evidence base Centre for Ageing Better The Centre for Ageing Better is an independent charitable foundation, set up in 2014 with a £50 million endowment from the Big Lottery Fund. Its long-term strategy aims to generate and mobilise evidence of what works to provide older people with fulfilling work, good health, safe, accessible homes and connected communities The Centre bridges the gap between practice and research – including evidence reviews, analysis and primary research – to bring about lasting change in society, particularly for those approaching later life and at risk of missing out. It does this through a range of innovative partnerships with local places and national organisations, including employers, a network of Age-friendly Communities, and government departments. What Works Centre for Wellbeing The What Works Centre for Wellbeing launched in October 2014. It has 17 founding partners including Public Health England, the ESRC, government departments, the Office for National Statistics, the Local Government Association and the BIG Lottery Fund. The centre will develop a strong and credible evidence base which will support these organisations to concentrate efforts on interventions that will have the biggest impact. The centre has commissioned a research synthesis of what works, and secondary data analysis, initially in 3 areas: employment and learning community wellbeing culture and sport There is also work on measuring, analysing data, definitions, and identifying areas for further research on wellbeing. The centre aims to mobilise knowledge to get evidence of what works to those areas and organisations that can use it to best effect. More information on What Works Follow us on Twitter @whatworksuk, contact us at whatworks@cabinetoffice.gov.uk or subscribe to our blog. What Works: evidence centres for social policy Open Public Services White Paper 2011 Civil Service Reform Plan [Nesta: Why We Need To Create a NICE for Social Policy (pdf)(http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/NICE.pdf) Published 28 June 2013 Last updated 14 January 2019 + show all updates