CAPEcast episode 3 transcript: Diversifying engagement with Parliamentary Select Committees

CAPEcast – Episode 3 – Transcript 

Participants 

 Sarah Chaytor (host) 
Rob Davies 
Faten Hussein

Introduction 

Sarah   

Hello and welcome to CAPEcast, the podcast from the Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement project. I’m Sarah Chaytor, Director of Research Strategy and Policy at UCL and a CO-Investigator on CAPE. And CAPE is a partnership between UCL and the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester, Northumbria and Nottingham, funded by Research England to explore how to strengthen the ways that universities engage with public policy.  

And I’m really pleased to be joined today by Faten Hussein who’s a senior specialist at the House of Commons Scrutiny Unit, and Rob Davies, who is wearing two hats today. He is a knowledge mobiliser for CLOSER, the home of longitudinal research, but he is also currently undertaking a CAPE policy fellowship in the Scrutiny Unit looking at how to diversify and strengthen evidence use in Parliament. So we’re really looking forward to a great conversation today with Faten about the role of the Scrutiny Unit and some of the things they’re trying to do in Parliament, and then with Rob reflecting on his experience as one of our first CAPE policy fellows. So I wonder if Faten could you just start by telling us a little bit about what the Scrutiny Unit does and what its role is within the House of Commons? 

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Faten   

Hi, Sarah, and thank you for having us on the podcast today. The Scrutiny Unit supports Select Committees in the work of scrutinising government policy, expenditure and legislation. We have a financial team and legal team and a specialist/policy analyst team and other staff which offer advice on all of these issues. We’ll also continuously think of ways to improve scrutiny and offer guidance and learning across the Select Committee team. We support academic policy engagement to some degree through facilitating fellowship schemes for academics in Select Committees, for example, with a Political Studies Association. But there is also more systematic work on this by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology. 

Sarah   

More commonly known as POST to most of us who can’t be bothered to say the full thing. Thank you. And I wonder if you might just talk us through then the background to the fellowship that Rob has been undertaking and where it fits in terms of the current context for the work of the Scrutiny Unit? 

Faten   

Yes. So the liaison committee in the House of Commons, which is the committee composed of all the chairs of the other committees. In the last session in 2017-2019, it ran an inquiry into the effectiveness of Select Committees and came up with recommendations on a number of areas. One of them was focused on Parliament’s use of research evidence, and I lead on that strand. I needed support in delivering this work over the summer and CAPE reached out at the time to discuss ways of engaging with us which was incredibly fortuitous. As I thought it’d be perfect to work with an academic who understands the policy engagement scene, and can work with me on closing the gap between what Parliament needs and what it gets from academics, and helped me understand what makes engagement appealing to academics. For example, a top priority for us in the Select Committee team as a whole and my work in the Scrutiny Unit is diversifying the evidence we receive. So we hear from a wider range of people, which in turn enables a more informed and more effective scrutiny. And this is what me and Rob are focusing on. 

Sarah   

Brilliant. And yeah, I’m really looking forward to hearing a little bit more about exactly what you’ve been getting up to. You’ve been undertaking the fellowship for three or four months now, I think? 

Rob   

Yeah, a few months now. So kind of initially, I started at a really kind of exciting time. So there’s in the house service, with lots of kind of new things happening, and kind of really innovative thinking, as well. So the first thing I did was support the development of a new Select Committee witness survey. So you know, kind of bringing, you know, my experience and knowledge in terms of kind of survey design, to that, but also the need to ensure the representatives from research institutions will be recorded in the future, you know, as a kind of, as a kind of box to tick. So that’s been really, you know, really interesting and useful. And I’m really keen to kind of see the results of that kind of come out over the next kind of few months and more. And I think in terms of ARI, so the main project I’ve been working on is kind of exploring the kind of utility of Select Committee ARIs. So I’ve kind of been designing and producing like products and communications on Select Committee areas of interest to help make the case to Select Committees, and worked on quite a big project basically managed and delivered the first ever Select Committee ARI for the International Development Committee, which was a really interesting experience and kind of really exciting kind of results that we had from that. So just briefly, just to kind of touch on that we had over 40 responses from 29 universities and research institutions from across the UK. So a really good spread across the UK, not just the kind of Russell Group universities, 40% of respondents had never ever engaged with Parliament before. So you know, this was their first time kind of, you know, actually, you know, engaging with the Parliamentary process, engaging with Select Committees, and virtually all were beyond the committee’s usual suspects. So in terms of the original aims of the committee to kind of uncover, you know, more research, and, you know, potentially some scrutiny themes and get beyond the usual suspects we had a really good result on that. And also the academics that engaged shared kind of multiple pieces of existing and future research and over 100 suggested scrutiny questions, which then kind of drew together in a thematic analysis to help with the committee scrutiny of the government and UK aid. And I think on a, I guess, on a more kind of personal level, I’ve been building relationships kind of across the house, and crucially, my understanding of this world and, you know, the Select Committee team, and I think kind of related to that, on the other side of the coin, I spent time and, you know, really put some effort into helping Parliamentary staff understand the culture of academia, and the pressures, the challenges and the incentives of the environment that kind of I work in, and helping to helping them kind of unpick why some colleagues don’t engage in Select Committees and kind of what more can be done. So it’s been a really exciting kind of start to the to the fellowship. And as I said, the way I saw it of being able to kind of develop, you know, make a real difference developing kind of practical solutions, it’s really kind of come to fruition. And I’m been absolutely delighted with kind of what we’ve worked on. And the experience so far. 

Sarah   

So interesting. And so encouraging to hear. I’d like to just ask Faten for your views really on some of the things Rob has just highlighted. So perhaps starting with the witness survey, why do you think it’s important to do that? And what will that achieve or deliver within the Commons? 

Faten   

I think we just need to get an understanding of which groups of people engage with us. And whether there is particular geographic distribution, male versus female, for example, there is gender aspect, and that we want to know, whether academics with disabilities, for example, engage with us, and we can’t design good engagement initiatives if we don’t know where the gaps are. So that’s the basic idea behind that survey. 

Sarah   

Thank you. Do you think that will link through, I suppose, really, to what Rob was also describing in terms of developing areas of research interests for Select Committees in that the more diverse pool of witnesses to engage with that the better? Are they mutually reinforcing? 

Faten   

Absolutely. The nature of our work is pretty responsive to what the government does, and we tend to be pretty much hand to mouth as committee specialists. For example, one thing after the other, I wouldn’t have the space to think a bit more broadly about what we would what the committee wants to look into. So having a broad area of research interests that roughly reflects what a committee might look into in the next year or so I’m inviting responses from a wide range of people, as Rob mentioned, resulted in 40% of respondents were people that never engaged with Parliament before, which was quite impressive. And I was talking to colleagues at the IDC, the International Development Committee following that pilot, and they were incredibly impressed and said we were very sceptical at the start about the whole ARI thing. And now that we’ve tried it, they’ve gone around the houses recommending it to everyone, which speaks for itself. 

Sarah   

Yeah, it really does, doesn’t it? It feels to me as well, that there’s something quite important here in terms of thinking about how to encourage the academic community to engage with Parliament and sort of demonstrate the value of doing that, that perhaps sometimes there’s a tendency to overlook the role of scrutiny in public policy engagement, and to see it as an activity with which academics, you know, can and should engage. And so something that sort of foregrounds, the idea of academic researchers in forming that scrutiny role, and that really helps to showcase the scrutiny role. And perhaps broaden understanding I suppose, of where and how you might look to engage with an impact upon public policy is really useful. And I wonder if there’s something there about just emphasising the value of that function within Parliament, and getting away from the idea that it’s all about, I don’t know, sitting next to a minister at dinner, and trying to affect policy change with one conversation. 

Rob   

Absolutely. And I think in terms of kind of the work that we’re doing, you know, trying to create more systematic kind of mechanisms, you know, for this to happen to kind of open it up and diversify beyond, as you say, the person who just happens to be sitting next to the minister at dinner is an incredibly valuable thing to do, and I think will really help you know, kind of move that along. 

Faten   

And I was just gonna say you’re spot on Sarah. Select Committees play an essential role in scrutinising government policy expenditure and administration. And there are obviously other types of committees that scrutinise legislation. And it’s an important function that ensures government is held to account for the decisions they make, which impacts people’s lives. And when academics think of engagement with policy they only think of engagement with government, because it kind of is obvious to them where the research is going. And they can kind of tick the box that have achieved impact by engaging with that policy that the government was formulating. But because of the valuable work academics do across policy areas, Parliament does need this sort of expertise, when they are scrutinising government to kind of gauge what they should focus their attention on. And when Parliament scrutinises policy legislation and the implementation of government, it helps government make the policy formulation better. We were discussing this yesterday. It’s not only about the final report and recommendation, and how the government responds throughout the inquiry process. For example, if the government knows that a committee is likely to look into a certain area, they kind of think about their policies while they’re formulating. How would they stand in front of a committee and then they think about it. So it kind of changes the way government thinks about how they do things throughout the whole process and academics plays a central part in that and that’s why we’re really keen on making sure that they understand how we appreciate the role and we would like more and more diverse engagement with them in a more systematic way. 

Sarah   

Great, thank you. I mean, I think we’ve touched on this a little bit already, but I’m going to ask you both to just reflect on maybe your top two or three reasons as to why it’s important that academics do engage with Parliament, and more generally, why it’s important that Parliament then makes greater efforts to access that, that broader diversity of academic expertise that you’ve both referred to, and how that can inform and, and hopefully, in fact, improve this the scrutiny process? 

Rob   

Sure, I think I’ll kick off there. So, you know, for me, ultimately, it’s about ensuring, you know, policy development decisions are informed about the best available evidence. So in terms of, you know, it’s important for academics to engage, to support Parliamentarians in their work of scrutinising the government legislating, debating important issues, you know, checking, and approving government spending, to help shape and kind of change policy and the policy agenda. Ultimately, kind of demonstrating the impact of your research as this the you know, the kind of carrot, if you like, raising the profile of research, kind of broadening its dissemination beyond kind of academia or beyond, you know, kind of your usual suspects in, you know, the academic world, I think it’s really important, we finally have talked about this, to get a different perspective on your research as well. And to almost kind of centre it within the kind of policy context, you know, the real word, context. And that kind of gives you the opportunity, I think, you know, that engagement those conversations, gives you opportunity to develop potentially new research questions and new projects shaped by these kind of real world scenarios. And I think it’s been really important to kind of grow your network beyond the academic bubble, you know,  it’s really important for you to do that. And, you know, present you with new opportunities and new experiences, really. So yeah, I think those are the those are the kind of top reasons why academics should engage with Parliament. 

Faten   

I think for all the reasons I mentioned about the process of scrutiny of government policy expenditure and administration legislation. For all these reasons, academic engagement is important. We have specialists here and like policy analysts and library colleagues who work on producing research for us and colleagues at POST. But this tends to be very short term. Looking into subjects quickly, academics spend way more time looking into a particular area, and they know that area inside out. So they will bring insights that we may not have thought of which is an added bonus to the work we do here internally. 

Sarah   

Thank you. So if you could then reflect a little bit on what you think are both the biggest challenges and the biggest opportunities in terms of diversifying evidence use and where the academic community sits within that? And I wanted also to link that back to something we touched on a little bit earlier, which is really around what are the structures that do exist or could exist or should exist to support that diversification of evidence? 

Faten   

I think, to me, the biggest some of the biggest challenges are physical barriers that are now mitigated by the ability to give evidence virtually, for example, POST ran a series of conversations with academics with disabilities, for example, physical barriers can be quite high up in the challenge of engagement. So we’re trying to kind of keep some of our hybrid arrangements, at least to still enable that after things go back to the normal or the new normal, or whatever you want to call it. Another barrier, I think, is the methods of outreach knowledge exchange units and posts in general does a fantastic job in going out to academic institutions and other organisations to publicise and explain what Parliament does, and how academics can engage. But we still have committees that are either better [at] engaging than others with these hostile organisations are just more attractive to academics than others. And we still need to figure out why that is. And it’s a challenge that we need to look into in terms of reaching out to more diverse groups through cost and directly by Select Committees. In terms of opportunities, I think the opportunities are very clear, a more diverse research and evidence received by Select Committees,  better and more effective scrutiny of government better policies, better legislation for people committees, normally could only go on the evidence they receive, even if we know that there is a wealth of research out there, we draw our main conclusions and recommendations to the government from the evidence we receive. So if we always receive evidence from the same number of voices, scrutiny will definitely be skewed. So this is why the real opportunities in diversify and research that we can capitalise on is proper scrutiny of government policies. 

Rob   

I think, a main challenge, I guess we’ve touched on this in the conversation, is data basically. So kind of having the having the data to understand actually, who is engaging, who isn’t engaging, and then, you know, doing some work doing some kind of more exploration of why, you know, the reasons, you know, that that doesn’t happen, and trying to kind of create mechanisms and structures that will allow this to happen, you know, allow it to happen more, I think, in terms of the challenge, and, you know, my colleagues will, you know, will agree, you know, I think it’s time and time and resource, the lack of time and resource in both worlds. So I think on the research side, you know, researchers are really time poor. And I think the incentives aren’t necessarily there to do this type of engagement. So it can often be hard to see the benefits to researchers of engaging Select Committees, I think, on the Select Committee side, you know, the understandably reactive nature of Select Committees, and kind of perhaps the historical focus towards engaging with the usual suspects and trusted sources, like think tanks is definitely a challenge. But I think, you know, the opportunities are there to embed more, not just innovative ways to diversify the evidence that committees receive, like the ARIs but also creating actual structures, and you know, more systematic ways to overcome these, you know, these challenges. So it’s not just to kind of piecemeal kind of ad hoc approach that within Parliament, and I think within academia as well, we kind of, you know, start to move towards each other. So there’s more opportunities for engagement and kind of cooperation, and there’s a better understanding of the different worlds and how they can come together and how they can support each other really. 

Sarah   

So I wonder if we could just tease out a little bit then, we’ve talked about the usual suspects and we haven’t explicitly set out what we mean by that and also who isn’t in the usual suspects. That I think everybody can appreciate that there is perhaps a particular model of renowned expert, Professor X, which is perhaps why Select Committees have traditionally been more comfortable, certainly in terms of calling that oral witnesses. So there’s, and you’ve both talked very eloquently, I think about what more can be done on the Parliamentary side to try and go beyond just inviting illustrious Professor X. But it strikes me there’s a role for universities as well in terms of thinking about how we can support and enable our academics to do that, and particularly how you can support people at an earlier career stage who may not have the networks, or the confidence or the skill set to do this sort of work. So is there some more that you would like to see the academic community and universities themselves do to support staff? And then I also just wondered if there are, I suppose, within that, that broad category of how we diversify evidence, are there particular groups we should be paying more attention to perhaps based on either the work of the liaison committee, which, for example, highlighted the massive gender imbalance that exists? Or from research that’s been done more recently by people like Mark Getys that looks at who gives evidence and from where, or other categories as well that we risk overlooking or not giving a loud enough voice to? 

Faten   

Yeah, absolutely. To start just to comment on the phrase usual suspects, I think it means different things to different people. So if particular committees are constantly receiving evidence from a certain group of people, that would be their usual suspect, but it will be different for, for other committees on what more that could be done. Very specifically, in terms of the fellowships that we that we’re doing together, I’d be much in favour of considering fellowships like this one. And perhaps certainly fellowships came with CAPE for a steady stream of fellows working on economic policy engagement, the more people who have over here who understand how we work, and what we need from academics and go back and reflect that and also tell us from the other side, what makes engaging with us attractive to academics, will ensure better and more systematic cooperation between the two sides. And in terms of groups, you’ve identified them as the liaison committee identified. There is a gender imbalance, there is a geographic imbalance within to receive more evidence from London than other places, there is based on some of what POST did, we do not have much engagement from people with disabilities, for example, and we would like to see more of that, it’s not only about the physical barriers, as in coming into the Palace of Westminster and giving evidence, there is sometimes time restraints, the sort of language used, I remember attending one of the sessions with academics with disabilities. And they said, sometimes people look at us as not as experts, but as a study group, like something to study rather than someone that can inform them. And that is, that is something that definitely needs to change. With the Select Committees work when we invite witnesses, we have what we call discretionary witnesses or non-discretionary witnesses, the non-discretionary ones are the ones that we don’t have a say on, if you’re inviting the particular minister on this policy area, you can’t have a choice, it’s, if it’s a man, it’s a man if it’s so, so on, and so on. But we try and diversify where we can with the discretionary ones, the ones who can actually choose if we’ll have a panel of academics, we will try and observe a gender balance and all the other protected characteristics where we can and everything being equal, because again, you can have a very particular person who is very expert in a particular area, and that’s the person you invite, but we try and diversify where we can. And this is some of the work that Rob is doing with witness survey is to see where these gaps are, and try and address them as much as possible. I also mentioned that I would, in terms of what I would like to see more of, I would like to see more work, more engagement between Select Committees under relevant academic departments, like for example, establishing long term relationships and support of support and collaboration. And I would definitely like to see a change in academics’ perception that policy engagement is something they only do with government, as we mentioned, in comparison to government, Parliament is also resourceful. We’re in a much smaller operation that will always certainly value contributions from academics that help us improve that process of scrutiny.  

Rob   

On the usual suspects I think Faten is absolutely right, I would just add people with caregiving responsibilities as well on to that, and I think it goes back to the, you know, needing to create kind of platforms and mechanisms for people, you know, who can’t necessarily just pop on to jump on the tube and pop over to Parliament can actually surface their evidence and actually, you know, give their insights and their expertise into Parliament. But I think this is within a broader context of the kind of research world so, you know, UKRI’s new chief executive, and the kind of the new narrative about moving beyond the kind of superstar scientists you know, the lone you know, the lone scientist recognising that research doesn’t happen that way, and that there’s lots of different people that kind of add to that, and, you know, have insights and, you know, have valuable contributions to make to not just kind of policy and policy development, but you know, Parliament and Select Committees as well. So I think there’s, there’s a move, and I’m really pleased that in both worlds, if you like, there’s a real desire to kind of move forward to that.

Sarah   

Really interesting. Can we just finish then, by asking each of you to offer what your top tips might be for researchers or for academics who want to engage in Parliament? And then perhaps, as a final, final reflection, what you think good academic policy engagement really looks like for Parliament? And how researchers need to be working towards that? 

Rob   

No problem, I think I’ll kick off there, I think two main things, I guess. So first, you need to increase your awareness and an understanding of the world you’re trying to engage with and you’re trying to influence as Faten said, Parliament is very different to government. So you kind of have to understand that there are a lot of resources to help you do that, as Faten mentioned, Knowledge Exchange Unit within Parliament, and there’s some really good videos, actually, that have recently been published about how to engage with government, how to engage with Parliament, Select Committees and regional government as well, which I highly recommend people to kind of have a look at. And then through, you know, training sessions at your, your own institutions. So, you know, there’s obviously, UPEN - University Policy Engagement Network - but lots and lots of universities across the country have either already or are developing or have plans to develop their kind of own policy unit. So you know, it’s really important for academics to kind of engage with them to get a better understanding, and kind of related to that it’s key to remember the role of Parliament and Select Committees, you know, ultimately scrutinising government policy, you know, they’re not the government, they’re there to kind of scrutinise government policy. So the people that you’re trying to communicate with don’t occupy your world, they have different culture, speak a different language, you know, they never ever really want to hear the words more research is needed, when they’re looking for, you know, kind of policy recommendations. So it’s kind of really key to adapt your language. So, you know, in a nutshell, you know, jargon free plainly written and recommendations for policy and I think for me, because I’m always learning as well, my recent experience with the with the ARI suggested scrutiny questions that the committee could ask the government really, really helpful and it’s something that I haven’t necessarily done before, but will start to do now, you know, through the new experience and of developing the ARI. And finally, and I think for me, this this is really the most important one is focusing on your visibility. So it’s visibility of yourself and your research, you need to mobilise your research. So you need to sign up to expert databases, you need to engage in the scrutiny process by submitting written evidence to select inquiries, write blogs about your research, make yourself and your research visible to those who want to influence, for example, on their preferred social media platform, hint hint is Twitter, but also kind of, you know, attending, you know, policy, focus events and or listening into, you know, watching Select Committees and things like that. And really building up you know, a network beyond your academic bubble is really, really important. So I think I’d say if there’s one thing that researchers academics could do to help themselves, it’s focused on your visibility, because ultimately, if you cannot be found, and your research cannot be found, and you’re not mobilising that you’re not, you know, pushing that into the into the system, then it’s just not gonna, it’s not gonna make an impact, you know, people aren’t going to pay attention to it. 

Sarah   

Fantastic. And thank you, as well, Rob, for writing not only your own to do list for the next six months, but everybody else. Faten let’s finish with you. 

Faten   

I think, for me, good academic policy engagement needs to be tailored, targeted and systematic. So academics produce valuable research papers that would love to read and follow when we’re managing an inquiry, but almost never manage to do and I should apologise for focusing on the inquiry, because this is what we’re focused on in the Select Committee. And obviously, there are other ways of informing debate and other things in the chamber. But from what I said, the inquiry process is the main one, like a close look at what the terms of reference and a call for evidence are looking for, for example, will make their submission more useful and more likely to be used by committee and chair and academic papers. We’d also like to see research that is more focused on solutions rather than just diagnosing a problem. As Rob mentioned, we scrutinise government policy to try and make it better. So I think it’s less easy for the government to reject the committee’s recommendation, the committee is making use of research that is offering a solution for policymakers and suggests what the government could particularly do to address a problem or a gap, there is a much more useful thing for us to do, and much more useful information for us to receive as well. Rob mentioned the suggested questions when we received this, I was telling him this is just gold, because us as specialists, when we’re writing a brief, I’m trying to make suggested questions for the members to ask, this is always the most difficult thing, because you want to ask a question that is not easily dismissed. That sounds informed that will get a good answer. And that’s always the trick. If we get any suggestions from academics on these sorts of questions, that’s, that helps us quite a lot. So that would be my top tip. Make your engagement tailor targeted and systematic. As Rob said, know your audience and address them, give them what they need. We’ve all value academic research, but we are very, very time poor. 

Sarah   

Really brilliant, thank you both for some extremely helpful pointers and for a really rich and fascinating conversation, which I hope you’ve enjoyed as much as I have. That’s all from us this time. So please join us for our next CAPEcast episode and goodbye 

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