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EVIDENCE BASED THINKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES

EVIDENCE BASED THINKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES. Jonathan Shepherd Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. UNIVERSITY PRACTITIONER TRAINING. Structures Training arrangements Public policy context Research funding. Only 85 RCTs of any size in Crime and Justice 1982-2004.

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EVIDENCE BASED THINKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES

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  1. EVIDENCE BASED THINKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES Jonathan Shepherd Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

  2. UNIVERSITY PRACTITIONER TRAINING

  3. Structures • Training arrangements • Public policy context • Research funding

  4. Only 85 RCTs of any size in Crime and Justice 1982-2004 20th Century randomised experiments in medicine and in social sciences, education and criminology

  5. According to National Offender Management Service researcher, Jonathan Allen (2008): • Dearth of studies • Implementation is poor • Lack of high quality UK research • Many studies are not sound

  6. WHAT WORKS: TACKLING RE-OFFENDING AND SUPPORTING OFFENDER MANAGEMENT • Cognitive behavioural therapy, therapeutic communities and drug courts • Augmentation of educational, vocational and job skills and anger management are “promising” • Boot camps and “Scared Straight” don’t work

  7. Overall lack of engagement of policing and offender management with research intensive universities, either for evidence production or for practitioner training • Compared with most other public services, over-dependence on government to produce evidence of effectiveness

  8. GOVERNMENT PUBLIC SERVICE RESEARCH FUNDERS • No trials unit (Medical Research Council MRC) • No emphasis on translational research (MRC) • No contact point for education, police or offender management practitioners (MRC) No public service R&D schemes (National Health Service R&D scheme) Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

  9. PUBLIC POLICY CONTEXT Framework for science-based innovation to drive public service reform (HM Treasury 2004) BUT No formal links between Research Councils and most public servicesAND No recognition that public service evaluation is a fundamental societal need Emphasis on science infrastructure, not on applied research (Haldane would not approve)

  10. Evidence producers Universities Government departments Research Councils and charities Private sector Evidenceinterpreters Government departments Universities Cochrane/Campbell Collaborations Excellence Institutes Private sector Media Evidence implementers Service practitioners and managers Evidence distributors Government departments Universities Excellence Institutes Professional bodies Private sector Media THE EVIDENCE CHAIN

  11. Public services depend on the production, distribution and implementation of evidence of effectiveness • Systematic reviews of evidence depend on field experiments • Few connections between the national science and social science bases and public services

  12. Services are vulnerable to political fashion • Many criminologists and other social scientists lack credibility in public services • In teaching and nursing, practitioners stop practicing when they are appointed as academics

  13. THE MEDICAL SCHOOL MODEL • Practitioner-scientists (formal training pathways) • Practitioner-scientist partnerships • Integrated research, services, education and training • ‘Communities (social capital) which produce, distribute and apply evidence’

  14. NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS 1945 The discovery and development of penicillin

  15. PRINCIPLES ‘The knowing-doing gap’ Pfeffer and Sutton 2000 ‘Universities must invade the Hospitals’ Sir William Osler Professor of Medicine, Universities of Pennsylvania and Oxford 19th Century

  16. SCIENCE-BASED DISINVESTMENT Police and Offender management?

  17. SUMMARY • Compared with medicine, applied social sciences are seriously under-developed and far less productive (IEE) • In medicine, there is both fundamental science (e.g., stem cell research) and applied sciences (e.g. public health, general practice and surgery) – in medical schools • By comparison, crime and justice and education research is poorly organised

  18. Proposals for reform • Ensure that research-intensive universities develop service-specific schools/institutes in which new knowledge about service effectiveness and efficiency is generated and disseminated to students preparing for careers as public service professionals.  • Establish and maintain formal R&D schemes in all major public services – akin to NIHR in the NHS.  • Ensure that research council structure and function reflect and meet public service research needs as well as the needs of research communities

  19. Establish a Public Service Research Board to ensure that research arrangements and expertise, including about the training of practitioner-academics, are shared between services, research councils and government departments.  • Establish and maintain crime and justice and education excellence institutes to publish authoritative guidelines and to promote guideline implementation in services and with service regulators.

  20. PROPOSAL • To develop a prototype offender management institute in a research-intensive university which, through strong research, training and service collaborations, generates and delivers more effective and efficient interventions

  21. A multidisciplinary approach, incorporating psychology, health, education, economics and statistics • To develop a cadre of practitioner-academics committed to the production and implementation of reliable evidence for offender management services

  22. WHAT MIGHT A NEW OFFENDER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE LOOK LIKE? • International standard research hub • Interface with OM Trusts and Boards • Strong links with government and professional training • Offender rather than discipline focussed • Prototype for national adoption

  23. UNIVERSITY POLICE SCHOOLS – THE WALES MODEL

  24. Signal Crime Hotspots

  25. UPSI ACHIEVEMENTS IN FIRST TWO YEARS • Cohort of officer – graduates • Signal crime mapping • Economic benefits Training Retail trade £1.5 million in external grants • Integration of high grade police research, training and services

  26. REFERENCE: The production and management of evidence for public service reform. Evidence and Policy 2007;3:231-51

  27. RELEVANCE OF NICE MODEL TO POLICING NICE provides a model for guiding professional practice Remit similar to NPIA (service quality, innovation, fairness, value etc) Both citizen and population orientated Quality of life orientated Guideline implementation likely in command and control culture Promotes scientific foundations of services Is relevant to generic solutions Provides basis for prioritisation and disinvestment But: Takes account of few justice issues Depends on primary evidence (e.g. controlled trials) Depends on reliable benefit, harm and cost measures

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