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Rachel Appiah works as part of the Regeneration Delivery Unit in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities. Here she reflects on how her experience as a Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement Policy Fellow has helped her address the challenges faced by deprived cities and communities.
A key aspect of the Regeneration Delivery Unit’s work is to build relationships with local leaders across government departments to create two-way communication about the opportunities and barriers within a local place. I have dedicated my career to working with communities—it is important to empower local people to be able to voice their views and concerns and to engage them in the decisions that will shape their everyday lives.
"This experience has been invaluable to building networks and bridging the gap between policy makers and academics to bring together evidence-based research for better outcomes. Drawing in the right academics to function as critical friends has been useful for ensuring the right questions are being asked when approaching policy challenges and also in thinking through the long-term impact of interventions […] I would definitely recommend the CAPE Policy Fellowship to anyone who would like to explore their policy area in more depth with academics and get a fresh perspective."
As part of the CAPE Policy Fellowship, I was able to draw on academic expertise at CAPE partner institutions on policy-relevant issues such as effective collaboration and citizen participation. I was particularly keen to explore how policy makers can facilitate collaborative decision making with end service users more effectively. My participation in the Policy Fellowship scheme has provided tools for enhancing my approach to collaborative governance.
One example is illustrative case studies. These are extremely useful for tracking what has worked well—and what has not worked—from previous engagements with places and local stakeholders. This insight helps approach regeneration in a more holistic context. The policy environment can be complex with many moving parts that interact in different ways that can make interventions difficult. The discussions that underpinned my Fellowship provided opportunities to unpack the unintended consequences of decisions made earlier within the policy cycle and to think about mitigating adverse impacts. This is where evidence-based approaches—such as case studies—are invaluable. They help inform strategic thinking and policy planning exercises to help ‘future proof’ policy interventions. For example, I developed an operational model for approaching Levelling Up Deep Dives by building on the existing work of the Levelling Up Partnerships. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to developing and delivering interventions in different places and this underscores the importance of collaboration with different actors—from local leaders to policy makers—across the system.
My Fellowship also provided new insights into evidence-based co-design toolkits and I have been able to implement this learning while leading a transport deep dive in Bradford aimed at understanding the local regeneration opportunities that could accompany new rail infrastructure and what this would mean for local communities. By using evidence and data, I was able to build a rounded picture of the potential economic and social impacts and produce an analysis of potential constraints and opportunities that could accompany this intervention. Starting with the available data, I was able to assemble the analysis and test it with local leaders and experts, building on previous work and engagement to ensure that this was a collaborative two-way process. The process provided opportunities for a range of local stakeholders to give their input into the new infrastructure developments within their local place, which underscores the participative aspect of the work.
My engagement with researchers as part of my CAPE Policy Fellowship also shaped my approach to communicating complex policy issues (and solutions) to stakeholders as part of a compelling narrative. This has helped shaped the way that my team and I think about our role in the process as an important bridge between local people and Government. I am now better placed to support local leaders articulate their plans for their own places and to explore what intervention systems would be needed to maximise regeneration benefits. What has become clear is that storytelling in this area needs a system thinking approach that incorporates place, challenges, root causes, impacts, and the different actors and levers needed to implement change. This is achieved by setting the scene and posing propelling questions that help contextualise the rationale for intervention within a given place. It is then the role of policy makers to clearly articulate this narrative when convening relevant partners and encouraging a joint up multi-agency approach to maximise impact.