News and Comment

News

Commissioning for Outcomes – The role of social finance

Monday March 20 2017

Can social finance help with the challenges that public commissioning faces? This paper is intended as a provocation to government, commissioners, providers and investors to begin a richer conversation that doesn’t assume we already know the answers. OPM’s experts in commissioning for outcomes (Sue Goss) and in social finance (Chih Hoong) draw on their learning… Read More

Independent evaluation of the Essex Multi Systemic Therapy Social Impact Bond

Wednesday February 22 2017

For the past three years OPM has undertaken an independent evaluation of the Essex County Council Multi Systemic Therapy (MST) Social Impact Bond (SIB). The Social Impact Bond delivers MST to children and young people at risk of being taken into the local authority care.  The Social Impact Bond has been managed by Children’s Support… Read More

New approaches to public and patient engagement

Thursday February 9 2017

In the second half of 2016, OPM principals Rob Francis and Helen Brown worked with Birmingham CrossCity CCG to review their public and patient engagement structures. In this article, Rob talks about how the work took shape, what it helped to achieve and what we can all learn as a result. Please find the article… Read More

Comment

Unlocking Local Capacity – four years on

Monday August 15 2016

Let’s start with the scene-setting – the introduction you hear at every local government conference you’ve been to for the last five years. Money is getting tighter and tighter. Demand is growing – particularly in areas like adult social care. Five years from now – short of some miraculous windfall – councils won’t be able… Read More

Handle with care: a case study in using baseline and follow up surveys

Monday August 15 2016

The new orthodoxy Baseline and follow up methodologies have become the new orthodoxy when assessing the impact of interventions on programme participants – particularly when evaluating programmes with children and young people. In a context where experimental approaches are rarely seen as workable or even ethical, collecting baseline and follow up data is increasingly the… Read More

Introducing our new blog series – engaging children and young people in research and evaluation

Tuesday August 9 2016

At OPM we jump at the opportunity to work on projects involving children and young people. Not only are they tremendously fun to work with, but we passionately believe in the importance of their voices being heard in issues that affect them. From researching young people’s views on police stop and search powers to evaluating… Read More