Educe Director, Derrick Johnstone was recruited as a member of the national panel of Local Improvement Advisors (LIAs), specialising in leadership and partnership development, performance improvement, local economy/worklessness and data sharing. Support from LIAs was available through Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships to support local authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships in improving public services and gaining efficiencies. Assignments, funded by Communities and Local Government, between 2009 and 2011 included:
- data sharing to tackle worklessness: CLG/DWP pilot programme with Kent, Leeds and Liverpool
- review of regional research and intelligence capacity in the East Midlands, and subsequent role in support of a follow-up regional project on customer insight and research (for the East Midlands Improvement and Efficiency Partnership)
- locality working in West Cumbria (for Allerdale, Copeland and Cumbria local authorities)
- workshop facilitation to review progress by national partner organisations on recommendations made by the ‘Supporting Local Information and Research’ report (for CLG)
- research into the use and impact of Working Neighbourhoods Fund (for CLG)
- Customer Insight Skills Audit, for Humber Innovation Partnership
- advising on the development of the Doncaster Work and Skills Plan