Improving impact assessments to support the use of evidence in Scottish Government policy making

This internship forms part of an exciting cross-government programme to enhance how policymakers take account of the impacts of their decisions on different people, organisations or places. Working in a small team led by Chief Social Policy Adviser Professor Linda Bauld, but engaging with multiple policy and analytical areas, the candidate will contribute to a high profile programme of actions to develop the system of impact assessments within the Scottish Government. The team has a strong track record of hosting successful SGSSS internships. 

Development of a national standard on accessibility for disabled passengers in ferry travel

This would be a discrete project within the ICP working with the Mobility and Access Committee Scotland (MACS), ferry and port operators and councils and other user group representatives such as Scottish Tourism Alliance. The objective would be to develop an Accessibility Standard for ferry services that will be in addition to legal requirements for physical and mental accessibility and will act as guidance for island and peninsula ferry services, including vessel and port design, information and customer service.

Trust in government: building an evidence base for Scotland

Scottish Government has access to a range of data sources that provide direct and indirect evidence on levels of trust in government and potential contributing factors. This internship will focus on analysis that draws these together to build up a picture of levels of trust in government – and drivers of this – across different areas, demographics and protected characteristics in Scotland. We are interested in evidence from both quantitative and qualitative data sources, and there may be opportunity to carry out new qualitative work. It is intended that this project will result in a publishable report that provides a literature review of existing evidence on trust and sets out new analysis resulting from the project. Evidence based recommendations for improving Scotland’s evidence base on trust in government will also be welcomed, along with a presentation to relevant Scottish Government staff and stakeholders.

Tackling health inequalities: evidence for the national review of Community Link Workers

The internship’s objectives are to provide policymakers with a better, evidence-based understanding of: the training/professional support CLWs already receive and gaps in this; and the views of CLWs and those who manage and commission CLWs services about their priorities for professional support and development needs. We expect the project approach to be a combination of: desk-based work (e.g. reviewing reports); data collection and analysis (e.g. interviews, focus groups, online survey); which will lead to a report and key messages Powerpoint.

Breaking down silo working – designing a systems approach to the process of developing food policy and creating metrics to assess effectiveness.

This project provides an exciting opportunity to work in a cross-cutting and dynamic policy area. The purpose of this project is to consider how to translate this novel legislative requirement into the day to day working practice across the Scottish Government. The project will identify options for how to embed a process of collaborative and cross policy working in relation to food policy across the Scottish Government. The project will also consider how the effectiveness of this process can be measured.