Research Services

Surveys

There has been an increasing recognition over the past few years that in order to shape the services people want it is vital that stakeholder views are taken into account.

We have vast experience of conducting surveys and questionnaires in both on-line and hard copy format either as part of wider projects or as dedicated projects in many areas from workforce surveys and childcare sufficiency to large scale children’s centres consultations to Best Value reviews. Indeed, one of the main strengths of MRC is that, in undertaking many projects of which consultation is only a part, we understand the issues that need to be addressed when it comes to survey design, administration and analysis.

Further, we can be entirely responsive to your needs and can help you whether you want a full survey service or help with just some of the aspects of the projects such as questionnaire design, administration or analysis.

Our survey work encompasses both quantitative and qualitative data and we have analysed totally open ended responses to consultations, for example the site of a new secondary school for Bristol, on many occasions.

Policy Research and Analysis

MRC aims to help clients with the development of their plans, policies and strategies taking into account the realities in terms of clients’ funding and resources, so that the research and analysis that we undertake for them can be applied within their organisational context.

This helps clients position themselves in relation to their service users, providing the information they need in terms of, for example, benchmarking against others or enlightening them with regard their relationships with stakeholders, partners or employees.

Procurement and Contracts

Procurement has clearly taken a far higher profile in recent years with almost all local authorities now having dedicated procurement sections working in a co-ordinated manner across directorates and undertaking multi agency commissioning and procurement.

In one capacity or another we have contracts and procurement experience ranging back from the days of compulsory competitive tendering in the health service and local government in the 1980’s and 90’s to the construction of many service level agreements for, for example, SureStarts, and recent procurement documents for children’s centres and youth services. We have also represented third sector organisations as they become more involved in procurement issues. Further we have experience of contracts and procurement from both the client and service provider sides having constructed both tender and specification documents and built up tenders for service provision for services worth several millions of pounds.

Service Evaluation

Clearly quality provision is integral to every service. Increasingly, and especially in the public domain, it is important to demonstrate service quality. Whilst there is a vast range of targets and performance indicators it is also necessary to reflect the softer issues of service delivery. This is particularly important to services which may be open to procurement processes where the emphasis is on both price and quality.

From a background of service and best value reviews MRC has conducted evaluations across a wide range of disciplines. This has included SureStart family support services, midwifery services and post natal depression services, evaluations within local authority departments on, for example student grants and admissions, as well as large scale evaluations in completely different disciplines such as reviewing the government’s Change Up programme consortia across the South West of England (in partnership with Phillip Parry Associates and Bridge Consulting Partners).

Data and Analysis

Robust data, alongside softer outcomes, is essential for measuring year on year performance.

MRC has carried out many data gathering and analysis exercises over the years and has helped a number of clients build year on year data which is reliable, uses consistent sources and can therefore be confidently used to measure service progress. MRC has, for example gathered a wide a range of data for Sure Starts and children’s centres including health data, education data, economic and demographic data at the same time gathering essential comparator data so that service managers are not monitoring their services in a vacuum.

We have undertaken the collection of Key Performance Indicators for a number of clients and have acted in an interim management capacity managing the Information Services section of the East Riding of Yorkshire LEA in preparation for OfSTED inspection, as well as, for example, reviewing the data collection systems for secondary schools in Monmouthshire.