***apologies for cross-posting***

Dear Colleague

CRSP has recently published two reports which may be of interest.

Customers' Experiences of Contact with the Pension, Disability and Carers Service (PDCS)

This research was commissioned by the Pension, Disability and Carers Service (PDCS) to investigate the circumstances surrounding the ways in which people who were customers of both The Pension Service (TPS) and the Disability and Carers Service (DCS) came into contact with the agency’s services. It also explored the factors most likely to trigger further contacts, the role of networks and professionals in this process and people’s needs, preferences and expectations of service delivery.

The research involved in-depth interviews with 30 men and women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who were drawn from the PDCS customer database. It also involved three discussion groups: two with people over State Pension Age and one with carers. A third element of the study involved re-analysis of data from the ‘Resources in Later Life’ (RILL) study.

The findings provide PDCS with a comprehensive insight into the characteristics, experiences, needs and expectations of its customers. They raise a number of issues which PDCS may wish to consider when developing future ideas for service delivery. These include:

• enhancing service design and delivery by developing a better understanding of the role of PDCS in the wider context of older people’s lives;

• overcoming the barriers people experience in becoming aware of and contacting the service, making claims and in understanding the information provided and required by PDCS;

• harnessing the key role of family, friends and local partners in raising awareness among, and providing support to, older people in accessing services;

• better understanding and responding to customers’ preferences and needs, and managing customers’ expectations of the service; and

• better understanding the particular pressures experienced by carers, in particular by mutual carers.

The report is available via DWP http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_722.asp or the CRSP website: http://www.crsp.ac.uk/publications/customers_experiences_of_contact_with_the_pdcs.htm

Road User Safety and Disadvantage
The Department for Transport published a report following a three year study undertaken by CRSP in partnership with AECOM.

The overarching finding from this research is that environmental and planning issues and community involvement need to be at the heart of comprehensive cross-government road safety strategy if the numbers of road injuries involving children and young people in disadvantaged areas are to be significantly reduced. This research provides some clear suggestions as to how the inequalities in road injuries in disadvantaged communities might be reduced by:

• Developing and managing the physical environment - this broad area of activity is concerned with managing the high demands on densely populated urban areas; dealing with the legacy of older urban environments not originally designed for cars and giving a higher priority to pedestrians. Suggestions include: taking planning measures to avoid the further intensification of housing and ensuring that developments make provision for public transport or on site access.
• Managing traffic and effective enforcement activity - more effective and visible traffic management and enforcement activities to reduce the volume and speed of traffic in disadvantaged areas and so reduce the risks for child pedestrians. Working with the local community to identify areas of particular risk and determining an appropriate response.
• Changing behaviours and attitudes - the research suggests that future road safety communication activities need to be designed to ensure they use language, imagery and media that make the content relevant to people in disadvantaged areas – and in some cases, their ethnicity/culture as well as age. The application of marketing tools such as MOSAIC can be appropriate for identifying and engaging key groups.
• Integrating road safety into other policy agendas - the research has indicated that there would be considerable value in ensuring that road safety issues are incorporated at a high level within a wide range of organisations so that it becomes entrenched in strategic level planning and policy by organisations and departments outside of those explicitly focussed on local authority road safety.
• Increasing the level of co-ordinated partnership working at an operational level - It would appear that there is scope for more joined up working at an operational level including linkages with the police, fire and rescue and other emergency services, community safety, community .

The full report, Road Safety and Disadvantage (DfT Report 123) by Clare Lowe, Grahame Whitfield, Liz Sutton and Jeremy Hardin is published by the Department for Transport. It can be accessed on-line at: www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme1/roadusersafetyreport/ or via the CRSP website on http://www.crsp.ac.uk/publications/road_user_safety_and_disadvantage.htm

With best wishes.

Sharon

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Sharon Walker
Office and Knowledge Transfer Manager
Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP)
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK

Phone: +44 (0)1509 223618
Fax: +44 (0)1509 213409
www.crsp.ac.uk
www.crsp.ac.uk/staff/sharon_walker.html

www.minimumincomestandard.org

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