Details are below of the 2020/21 CRESR Seminar Series, the seminars were all held virtually and the recordings are available.

Simon Kaye and Luca Tiratelli, New Local Government Network

Biographies - Luca Tiratelli is a Senior Policy Researcher at NLGN, having arrived from the National Centre for Social Research in 2019. Since joining, he has authored and co-authored numerous reports on topics including inclusive growth, community mobilisation and resilience in public policy.

Dr Simon Kaye is a former academic, and Senior Policy Researcher at NLGN. He is interested in a range of subjects, including democracy, localism and self-governance. He is currently working on a major report on the work of economist Elinor Ostrom.

Abstract (PDF, 227.1KB) - The community response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a source of much needed positivity during the heights of lockdown earlier this year. Thousands of spontaneous, voluntary mutual aid groups emerged to help support the most vulnerable people in our society, building community bonds and forging a sense of togetherness amongst people as they went. While researching these groups for a recent report, we found that often, these groups were able to respond to the crisis with far greater speed and flexibility than traditional public services, and were, as such, vital to our national response to COVID-19. This highlights the importance and potential of community collaboration – and means that we must learn lessons from what we have seen over the last few months if we are to build a more resilient and better future.

David Robinson, Shift Design

Biography - David Robinson is a community worker and writer in east London and co-leads the Relationships Project https://relationshipsproject.org/about/. David has founded and led several organisations including Community Links, Shift and Discover. He is a founding director at Social Finance, Chair of the Impact Incubator, a Practitioner in Residence at the LSE’s Marshall Institute and an Ashoka Senior Fellow. He led Gordon Brown’s Council on Social Action, and the National Early Action Task Force and books include Changing London (with Will Horwitz), Britain’s Every DayHeroes (with Gordon Brown) and the million selling Change the World series (with We Are What We Do).

Abstract (PDF, 548.7KB) - We set up the Relationships Observatory in March to gather insights from the social response to COVID-19 and to spot, support, and sustain the positives. At the end of July, we published The Moment We Noticed – our report on the first 100 days of this work. We reported on the “undercurrents”, the shifting attitudes that could prefigure more profound change. We saw the emergence of behaviours across the sectors which are more trusting and principle led, rather than rules based, cemented by solidarity rather than compliance, less hierarchical, more horizonal, less defensive, more can do, kinder, more emotionally responsive, personal and human. I will speak about these undercurrents, how they are developing and changing now and the implications for us all.

Mandy Wilson, Freelance community development practitioner, manager and action researcher

Biography - Mandy Wilson is community-based researcher and facilitator, primarily working with national community-based programmes. For almost ten years she has worked with both the Big Local Programme (Local Trust) in a variety of roles, and with several community organiser programmes (Locality and Community Organisers) as a learning partner.

Abstract (PDF, 550.1KB) - Mandy has been involved in two research studies focused on community responses to COVID-19:

• Working with Marilyn Taylor, Mandy carried out research to find out how community organising was contributing to the response in local communities and the key policy messages arising
• Working with the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham, Mandy has been involved in real time research commissioned by Local Trust to explore community responses to COVID-19 across 26 communities – immediate responses, coping mechanisms and strategies for moving on.

Both of these research opportunities have been time pressured but extraordinary and privileged experiences in the current context. Drawing on this learning from communities, Mandy will outline the research approaches and share findings and learning to date.

Lucie Middlemiss, University of Leeds 

Biography - Dr Lucie Middlemiss is Associate Professor in Sustainability and co-Director of the Sustainability Research Institute, at the University of Leeds in the UK. She wrote the first textbook on Sustainable Consumption (Routledge, 2018), and has research interests in sustainable consumption, energy poverty and participation in sustainable development. Her research on energy poverty brings together qualitative insights into the lived experience (including the first paper to use this term in 2015), with critical policy analysis (notably a critique of English policy in this area in 2017). She is motivated by connecting deep understandings of energy consumption in daily life, with planning, measuring, monitoring and decision-making by policy-makers and practitioners. In more recent work, she has led a team conducting secondary qualitative analysis of lived experience data (2019and 2020), resulting in insights into the importance of social relations in energy consumption (see also 2020in Nature Energy). She was also part of a team which produced a white paperon energy poverty for the Netherlands in 2020: translating state of the art academic thinking on this topic into concrete policy recommendations.

Abstract: A systemic approach to fuel poverty: the links with carbon reduction - Understanding fuel poverty is critical in the context of the domestic carbon reduction, as this will likely have negative effects on the fuel poor unless they are directly addressed in planning for the future. This is likely to result in negative political consequences for the environmental movement. In the seminar I will profile a socially systemic approach to addressing fuel poverty which helps us to think about the unintended consequences and knock-on effects of policy in a number of domains (health, housing, social). This is also useful in thinking about the intersection between environmental and fuel poverty goals. I will also profile work that I have contributed to in the Netherlands, as co-author of a white paper on energy poverty, showing how this thinking can be developed in policy and practice.

Helen Stockton, National Energy Action 

Biography - Helen has 20 years of applied social research experience spanning the quantitative and qualitative paradigms. She joined NEA’s Research Team in 2001 and holds a BSc (Hons) in Sociology and Social Research; an MSc in Social Research; and MSc in Public Administration covering aspects of social policy development and analysis and public sector management. Helen’s areas of research interest include social policy and issues relating to poverty, energy and social justice. She is enthusiastic about exploring new methodological approaches for researching fuel poverty and the ways that knowledge can be better brokered between academia and those working in policy and practice.

Abstract: Social justice in the energy transition: meeting the needs of vulnerable energy consumers - Today across the UK around 3.3 million households live in fuel poverty. Fuel poverty is typically understood as arising from a combination of poor energy efficiency, low household income and high energy costs, but there are several secondary factors that can act to moderate fuel poverty, its lived experience and energy demand; such as health needs, access to the energy market and to vital support. For families, fuel poverty often means living in cold, damp and expensive to heat and power homes, poor physical and mental health outcomes, financial instability and debt, energy rationing and harmful coping practices and poor educational outcomes. In her presentation, Helen will consider how the transition to net zero and attainment of climate change objectives can be achieved in socially just ways, with vulnerable households adequately represented in our planning so that they are protected, but also so that they too are able to access and benefit from the innovation that will flow from it.

Elizabeth Blakelock, Citizens Advice

Biography - Elizabeth joined Citizens Advice in 2017. Her main focus is delivering rigorous insight on Retail Market outcomes for consumers through monitoring industry performance. This work ensures that Citizens Advice can deliver leading research and advocacy on domestic and micro-business consumer experience to ensure appropriate regulation and policy in energy markets. Prior to joining Citizen Advice, Elizabeth worked for over a decade on affordability challenges in the UK energy markets in industry and as an academic researcher.

Abstract: A fair future for all - Like the retail market structure that preceded the price cap, existing plans for new business models in energy risk excluding consumers in vulnerable circumstances, including those in fuel poverty. Citizens Advice research highlights that there are particular barriers for those who are digitally excluded, live in the private rented sector and those who do not have savings. The transition to a decarbonised society needs to be inclusive by design. As we move to a future energy system that is fair, people need more than information - they also need protection and support.

Ruth Patrick, University of York

Biography - Ruth is a lecturer in Social Policy at the University of York. She leads the Nuffield Foundation funded Covid Realities research programme and is the author of For Whose Benefit? The Everyday Realities of Welfare Reform.

Abstract: Covid realities: documenting everyday family life on a low-income during the pandemic (PDF, 177.2KB) - The Covid-19 pandemic has created a context of insecurity and uncertainty for us all. For families living on a low-income, this context of insecurity intersects with and is compounded by the financial insecurities they face. In this presentation, Ruth will draw on participatory work which she has been undertaking in collaboration with parents and carers from across the UK, and with academics from the universities of York and Birmingham. She will outline the everyday realities for families on a low-income, and document some of the problems with the social security system that have been further highlighted by the pandemic. She will also reflect on the framing of the social security response to Covid-19; and what this suggests about the pervasiveness and reworking of divisions between deserving and undeserving populations.

Tony Wilson, Institute for Employment Studies

Biography - Tony has worked in employment policy and research for most of the last twenty years, in a range of roles spanning central government and independent institutes. As Institute Director at IES, Tony leads a team of forty people delivering research, analysis and consultancy support on employment, skills, education and HR. He has particular expertise in labour market policy and analysis; the design, delivery and evaluation of employment and skills programmes; supporting organisations to understand and apply evidence of ‘what works’; devolution and local delivery; and leading complex programmes.

Prior to joining IES in October 2018, Tony was Director of Research and Development at the Learning and Work Institute, and before that a Director at the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion. Between 2001 and 2011 he worked on employment, skills and welfare in the Department for Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus and latterly in HM Treasury.

Abstract: Covid 19 and the impacts on the labour market (PDF, 1.2MB) - Tony will talk through the Institute for Employment Studies’ latest analysis of the impacts of the crisis on the labour market and assessment of the government’s policy response.

Jenni Cauvain, Nottingham Trent University

Biography - Biography: Dr Jenni Cauvain is the lead author of this paper. She is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. Prior to NTU, Jenni worked at the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester, also for the thinktank IPPR North. She is an honorary senior research associate at the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, DeMontfort University. She tweets at @jenniviitanen and can be emailed at jenni.cauvain@ntu.ac.uk

Abstract: Show me the money – income inequality and segregation in UK cities (PDF, 1.6MB) (Authors: Jenni Cauvain*, Gavin Long, Tim Whiteley and Etienne Farcot) - A number of factors have led to (concentrations of) poverty becoming prioritised, over income inequality, in empirical studies of household income in urban areas. The factors range from normative motivations to intervene in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, to hegemonic right to privacy and autonomy being afforded to wealthy households and neighbourhoods. This paper addresses a gap in understanding the relationship between household income inequality and income-based segregation at the urban and neighbourhood scales in the UK. The results highlight that the cities and districts with a greater share of the high income population are less segregated (Index of Dissimilarity), but have higher income inequality (Gini). Lower average income cities tend to be more segregated because high income households segregate into ‘pockets of affluence’. These results also confirm that high income households are the most segregated group in our sample, following a global trend. The research highlights just how prevalent low income is in urban neighbourhoods, making the case for high income as the designated minority population in segregation studies. In our detailed case study of Nottingham conurbation, greater income homogeneity is typical of low income areas. Neighbourhoods with a high Gini coefficient are “mixed income”; here the Gini is raised by the presence of high income households. These results are based on an experimental household income dataset released by the Office of National Statistics, with analysis of all core cities in England and Wales, alongside Derby, Leicester, Cambridge, Southampton and Winchester, followed by a detailed case study of Nottingham (UK) and its extended suburban boundary.

Brendan Nevin and Alan Harding, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

Biography - Brendan Nevin is Director of North Housing Consulting and a Visiting Fellow at CRESR. He has held a number of research and public policy positions in professional practice and academia over the last three decades focusing mainly on housing and the dynamics of urban change. In professional practice has held posts at Assistant Chief Officer and Chief Officer in English Local Government and spent two years as the Interim Managing Director of a sub-regional urban renewal partnership (New Heartlands). He has previously been the Director of Social Housing Reform in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment in New Zealand and contributed to the earth quake recovery programme in Christchurch. In 2002 he was seconded into the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in the UK to develop the framework for the English Housing Market Renewal Programme having led the national research programme at the University of Birmingham which established proof of concept. During his time in academia and consultancy Brendan has specialised in developing sub regional and city based housing and regeneration strategies based on partnership working, analysis of need, and solid links to planning and economic development frameworks. He is a passionate advocate for linking research and analysis to public policy development. Current interests include partnership working and pandemic recovery, and the development of local housing systems analysis to improve decision making and the targeting of investment.

Alan Harding is Chief Economic Adviser to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and a visiting Professor at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research in the Alliance Manchester Business School. He oversees the analytical work that supports GMCA’s research and intelligence, strategy development and evaluation efforts. Most recently, he oversaw the production of the Greater Manchester Independent Prosperity Review, a major collaborative initiative with leading academic experts designed to refresh the evidence base for future economic strategies. Previously, Alan spent 30 years in academia leading specialist urban-regional research Institutes and Centres in the north of England.

Abstract (PPT, 2.2MB)- Implicit Urban Policy, Spatial inequalities and Infrastructure Investment - In this presentation we will revisit the argument, first made in a paper that formed part of the Government Office for Science Future of Cities programme, that the influence wielded by the public sector over spatial economic outcomes derives from three broad sources, viz:

• Explicit national spatial policies and programmes,
• (implicit) national policies and programmes whose spatial implications are not formally considered within policy design processes, and,
• the independent policy and programme choices that sub-national units of government are empowered to make for themselves.

The first part of the presentation will briefly review changes that have taken place within these three policy spheres since 2014, when the paper was published. The second part will focus in more detail on evidence of change in implicit spatial development policy. The final part will assess the likely implications of recent changes for future spatial development patterns and the reforms that would be needed to produce outcomes that achieve ‘levelling up’ more effectively.

Rachel Aldred, Westminster University

Biography - Rachel Aldred is Professor of Transport at Westminster University and directs its Active Travel Academy, a centre for research and knowledge exchange. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and in 2016 won the ESRC Prize for Outstanding Impact in Public Policy. Her research is funded by organisations including DfT, NIHR, and TfL.

Abstract: Emerging impacts of the low traffic neighbourhood roll-out in London, 2020 - Building on research into longer-standing schemes in Waltham Forest, this talk will cover some emerging impacts of the roll-out of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) in London in 2020. During six months over 70 schemes were introduced across two-thirds of London boroughs. We are now able to provide evidence on impacts on active travel, fire response times, and street crime, while longer-standing LTNs have provided evidence of impacts on car ownership and road injuries. The presentation will conclude with thoughts on the need for further research and how schemes could be improved.

Stephen Edwards, Living Streets

Biography - Stephen Edwards is Director of Policy and Communications at Living Streets, the charity for everyday walking. Stephen leads Living Streets’ engagement with central and regional government, as well as wider communications activities across all channels. He is also Chair of Governors at a North London primary school.

Abstract - Stephen will discuss the importance of walking as we look to build back from the pandemic, and the areas we need to consider if we are to create truly inclusive neighbourhoods for all ages and abilities. He will look in particular at Living Streets’ work with schools, workplaces and communities.

Pete Zanzottera, Sheffield City Region MCA 

Biography - Pete Zanzottera is the Active Travel Programme Director for Sheffield City Region MCA, reporting to the Commissioner Dame Sarah Storey. He attempts to walk the talk, run, and cycle for nearly all his trips, combining with public transport when it’s a bit too far. He’s worked in sustainable travel for the last 30 years, he is one of the many old men in transport and therefore one of the last people you should listen to.

Abstract - We are recovering from a pandemic, one which showed us how important running and walking are to making our local neighbourhoods vibrant places to live and glimpses of how cycling increases when road danger decreases. Many of our lives will have been changed, but it’s not all plain sailing from here, retail parks have surged in popularity, and yet some people with impairment have barely set foot outside where they live. We risk a very uneven recovery, and for the next 6 months, many people will be changing their patterns of behaviour to create a new normal.