Gwilym Gibbon Centre for Public Policy

The Gwiliym Gibbon Centre for Public Policy was a research centre based at Nuffield College between 2014 and 2019.  It has been superseded by the Nuffield Politics Research Centre.  The GGCPP aimed to combine the rigour of academe with the timetable required by policymakers, and to submit evidence in support of policy choices. Its outputs included academic and policy papers; blog posts; media appearances; and evidence to select committees and in response to government consultation requests.

Background

In granting the College's initial endowment, William Morris, Lord Nuffield, expressed a wish that Nuffield would conduct ‘post-graduate work especially in connection with the study by co-operation between academic and non-academic persons of social (including economic and political) problems’.  These terms were repeated in the Will of an early benefactor, Sir (loan) Gwilym Gibbon, who had been a senior civil servant. His notice in the Dictionary of National Biography states, ‘Gibbon was an admirer of the empiricist philosophy of Hume, and believed passionately in the rigorous accumulation of facts and examination of policy options. On this basis he was both a controversial and an influential figure.’ The Policy Centre was thus one of the College’s ways of honouring its commitment to its founders’ and testator’s wishes.

Under its part-time Director and a number of unpaid Gwilym Gibbon Fellows and Associate Members from the public service and the world of think tanks, the Centre conducted action research into public policy issues.  Its outputs included academic and policy papers, including its own Working Paper series; blog posts; media appearances; and evidence to select committees and in response to government consultation requests.

GGCPP people

A variety of researchers, Fellows and Associate Members were involved over the years.  We name a few here:

Notable projects

The history of UK public spending control 1993-2015

Principal Investigator: Christopher Hood (All Souls College and Blavatnik School of Government)

Co-investigators: Iain McLean (Nuffield College) and Paul Johnson (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Research officers: Maia King and Barbara Piotrowska (Blavatnik School of Government and Nuffield College)

Since emerging from the early-1990s recession, the UK economy moved from sustained growth to deep recession and then sluggish post-crisis recovery. Each presented challenges for public spending control – ranging from how to boost public investment in the ‘good times’ to how to bring spending down as a share of GDP after the financial crisis left the economy and tax revenues much smaller than previously expected. Since the early 1990s, four different spending regimes have been operated by three different governments.

This three-year project investigated how – and how well – spending control worked over this period. It did so in four main ways: first, by looking at the statistical record of UK spending plans versus outturns; second, by examining public and archival documents on the design and efficacy of the different control regimes; third, through extensive interviews with the key politicians, officials and commentators that were involved at each stage; and fourth, via international comparison with a selection of advanced economies.

The project involved collaboration between the Blavatnik School of Government, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government, with active support and cooperation from HM Treasury. It was led by three experienced researchers, Christopher Hood, Paul Johnson and Iain McLean, and benefitted from substantial pro bono contributions. The project was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

Resource Allocation Processes in Policing in Great Britain

This project was funded by the College’s G. S. Pollard Memorial Bursary, which was established from a generous donation from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

In total, the 43 Policing areas in England and Wales spend over £11 billion a year. This can be analysed in subjective or objective terms using nationally compiled data. The action research undertaken in this project was targeted at advising stakeholders ahead of the Spending Review, originally expected in 2017. It aimed to evaluate the decision making processes used by Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) and Chief Constables, to decide how budgets are allocated to specific programmes and geographical areas across all the UK’s territorial police forces (except Northern Ireland). Comparisons with Police Scotland and the British Transport Police were made. The research explored whether there are systematic differences between forces and whether decisions are made based on evidence or professional experience. The project comprised:

  • A review of the resource allocation processes currently used within the Police and Community Safety sector.
  • The factors, measures and evidence which are taken into account.
  • An evaluation of the processes which are used in other sectors, and a consideration of their applicability within Policing and Community Safety.
  • The decision making process itself and who is involved in making the decisions; the level of formality in the process.
  • The differences between how the process operates at Force or Divisional level, and at local/front line level.
  • The level of technical and economic assessment – to what extent do decision makers assess the costs and benefits of alternative choices.
  • The techniques and evidence bases which are used.
  • The benchmarks which are set, against which to measure performance and to trigger review.
  • The development of a set of principles for an enhanced arrangement, taking into account the specific challenges within the Police and Community Safety sector.
  • The provision of advice on how guidance material might be produced about the techniques of resource allocation, and making recommendations as to how awareness and knowledge might best be shared across the Service.

The project published several working papers, which may be found here. At the end of the project, the results were presented at a meeting in the House of Lords kindly hosted for us by the Police Foundation.

The project team comprised Iain McLean (Director), Anika Ludwig (Research Officer) and Mike Norton (postgraduate research assistant).