Facilitative Leadership: Involving citizens and communities in local decision-making

A new era of community participation in local democracy requires public services staff to develop skills for collaborative engagement.

Here  Claire Bynner, Oliver Escobar and Wendy Faulkner describe a What Works Scotland project to create a training course that would develop and cascade skills in facilitative leadership.

In an era of killer soundbites how can researchers and policy-makers close the gap between complexity and simplicity?

In the world today, simple but wrong answers are preferred to complex and right answers. Policy-makers are often more interested in a good soundbite than a detailed and tailored understanding of a complex world. So… in this 'post-truth era', is complexity becoming a dirty word? Or is the dirty word 'post-truth'?

Here Dr Claire Bynner, Research Associate at What Works Scotland, shares some of the highlights from the Social Research Association’s annual conference* and discusses how we might bridge the gap between complexity and simplicity, drawing on examples from evaluation research.

Why place?

Prevention, performance, participation, partnership; the four pillars of the Christie Commission are now well-known. But what about ‘place’? 

Here What Works Scotland Research Associate Claire Bynner examines the role of place-based approaches, what ‘place’ offers to public service development and delivery, and also what it doesn’t. 

The 2016 Alliance Conference and the Politics of Possibility

On 23rd May, The Alliance - the national third sector intermediary for health and social care organisations in Scotland, held its annual conference, and at the same time celebrated its 10th birthday.

In this blog, Claire Bynner, Research Associate for What Works Scotland, reflects on the people at the event, their activism, and the politics of possibility.

Scotland Welcomes Refugees - How do strangers become citizens?

In this blog Claire Bynner, What Works Scotland Research Associate, considers what increasing diversity means for local areas and what local government and community planning partnerships (CPPs) can do to support the settlement of new migrants. How can the transition towards more diverse communities be made easier?

Think YES? How to deliver transformational change in relationships between staff, managers and local people

What would you do if the head of your organisation suddenly told you to change your working practice and ‘Think Yes’ in everything you do? Well, that's precisely what happened to housing officers working for Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) when their new chief executive piloted an approach to leadership that fundamentally altered relationships between staff, their managers and their tenant and resident customers. 

In this blog Claire Bynner and Ken Gibb describe the experiences and impact of this leadership programme from the point of view of staff at GHA, who shared the story of Think Yes at a What Works Scotland Roundtable event at Glasgow University on 15th June.

The Economics of Prevention and Difficult Decisions for Community Planning Partnerships in Scotland

Claire Bynner, Research Associate at What Works Scotland, reflects on a seminar held by What Works Scotland last week on the Economics of Prevention focused on community planning and health.

This blog summarises the main points from the seminar and concludes that evidence provides no easy answers for CPPs.

'Fractals', Community Planning and Placed-based Policy Geography in West Dunbartonshire

What Works Scotland Co-Director Ken Gibb, and Research Fellow Claire Bynner reflect on starting work with West Dunbartonshire Council as one of our What Works Scotland case study partners.

Meet the WWS staff: Research Fellows Richard Brunner and Claire Bynner

Since the launch of What Works Scotland in June 2014, we have been establishing our case study areas and setting up a staff team.  Here we introduce two of our research fellows Richard Brunner and Claire Bynner.