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Alongside efforts to improve evidence use in policy, grassroots demands and governance-driven democratisation are informing an ever-increasing range of public engagement processes in UK policy. This article explores how these simultaneous efforts intersect within three policy organisations working at different levels of UK policy: local (Sheffield City Council), regional (Greater Manchester Combined Authority) and national (devolved) (Scottish Government). Employing documentary analysis and 51 interviews with individuals working in these organisations, we argue that there are organisational similarities in approaches to evidence and engagement, including: conceiving of both 'data' (statistics tracked by internal analysts) and 'evidence' (external analysis) in primarily quantified terms; and a tendency to limit the authority of publics to advising and consulting on predefined issues. Yet, we also find growing interest in more in-depth understandings of publics (for example, via 'lived experiences') but uncertainty about how to use these qualitative insights in settings that have institutionalised quantitative approaches to evidence. We identify four distinct responses: (1) prioritising public engagement; (2) strategically using public engagement and evidence to support policy proposals; (3) prioritising quantified evidence and data; and (4) attempting to integrate these distinct knowledge types. Surprisingly (given the organisational importance afforded to metrics), we categorised most interviewees in Cluster 4. Finally, we explore how interviewees described trying to do this kind of integration work, before reflecting on the promise and limitations of the various mechanisms that interviewees identified.

Social security policy in liberal welfare systems have been increasingly shifting towards conditionality and models of 'welfare-to-work' (Dwyer and Wright 2014, Raffass 2017, Brady 2018). This has been enabled by policy discourses that construct poverty and unemployment as the result of 'personal failure and poor social behaviour, facilitated by expensive benefits payments that make few demands of recipients' (Wiggan 2012: 384). Unravelling the policy discourse makes it possible to understand what is framed as the problem that requires intervention (Bacchi 2000, Pantazis 2016) and the political and cultural values in which the solutions are embedded (Prior, et al. 2012). Arguably, there is a trend within this area of study to overemphasise 'the constraints imposed by discourse' (Bacchi 2000: 55), which uncritically embraces a Habermasian conceptualisation of 'the public' that too easily dismisses the emergence of other public spheres as arenas for counter-discourses to develop (Fraser, 1990). Self Reliant Groups (SRGs) represent an example of such alternative enactments.

The UK Government has recently implemented large-scale public-sector funding cuts and substantial welfare reform. Groups within civil society are being encouraged to fill gaps in service provision, and 'social innovation' has been championed as a means of addressing social exclusion, such as that caused by worklessness, a major impediment to citizens being able to access money, power and resources, which are key social determinants of health. The aim of this article is to make the case for innovative 'upstream' approaches to addressing health inequalities, and we discuss three prominent social innovations gaining traction: microcredit for enterprise; social enterprise in the form of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs); and Self Reliant Groups (SRGs). We find that while certain social innovations may have the potential to address health inequalities, large-scale research programmes that will yield the quality and range of empirical evidence to demonstrate impact, and, in particular, an understanding of the causal pathways and mechanisms of action, simply do not yet exist.

The UK Government has recently implemented large-scale public-sector funding cuts and substantial welfare reform. Groups within civil society are being encouraged to fill gaps in service provision, and 'social innovation' has been championed as a means of addressing social exclusion, such as that caused by worklessness, a major impediment to citizens being able to access money, power and resources, which are key social determinants of health. The aim of this article is to make the case for innovative 'upstream' approaches to addressing health inequalities, and we discuss three prominent social innovations gaining traction: microcredit for enterprise; social enterprise in the form of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs); and Self Reliant Groups (SRGs). We find that while certain social innovations may have the potential to address health inequalities, large-scale research programmes that will yield the quality and range of empirical evidence to demonstrate impact, and, in particular, an understanding of the causal pathways and mechanisms of action, simply do not yet exist. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014.

The institutional engagement and analysis needed to effectively integrate the requirements of equality legislation into participatory budgeting (PB) processes requires a transformational approach. Equality processes appear to exist in parallel with PB activity, rather than being operationalized as integral to the objectives and character of PB activity at local level. This paper proposes that PB and the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in the Equality Act 2010 share a transformative intent and potential, but that this is undermined by siloed thinking on equalities and enduring discriminatory behaviour and practices. The paper concludes with propositions for aligning the conceptual links between equality and community empowerment and, thereby, participation in local financial decision-making in practice. Participatory budgeting (PB) has significant potential to transform the relationships between local communities and the public institutions that serve them. For public finance practitioners this means adopting different ways of working that expand and adapt to direction from communities through participative and deliberative decision-making processes. Ensuring that the diverse needs and experiences of local communities are understood and a range of voices is heard in local decision-making is essential in this process. Actively engaging with communities to advance equality and eliminate inequalities is integral to participatory decision-making and the allocation of public resources.

AbstractAdvocates of inclusive growth claim it provides policymakers with a means of combining economic success with social inclusivity, making it highly attractive across a wide range of settings. Here, we explore how three UK policy organizations (a devolved national government, a city region combined authority, and a local council) are pursuing inclusive growth goals. Drawing on 51 semistructured interviews, documentary analysis and policy ethnography, we argue that inclusive growth is a classic "chameleonic idea," strategically imbued with malleable qualities that serve to obscure substantive, unresolved tensions. These characteristics are helpful in achieving alliances, both within policy organizations and between these organizations and their multiple stakeholders. However, these same qualities make inclusive growth challenging to operationalize, especially in governance settings dominated by metrics. The process of representing a malleable idea via a set of metricized indicators involves simplification and stabilization, both of which risk disrupting the fragile coalitions that malleability enables.

Democracies are under pressure and public administrations must evolve to accommodate new forms of public participation. Participation processes may reproduce or disrupt existing power inequalities. Through a multi-method empirical study of "Participation Requests," a new legislative policy tool to open up public services in Scotland, this article addresses an empirical gap on governance-driven democratic innovations (DIs). We use Young's distinction of external and internal inclusion and find Participation Requests replicate the pitfalls of traditional forms of associative democracy. We contend that DIs should be co-produced between institutions and communities to bring a participatory and deliberative corrective to temper bureaucratic logics.

Democracies are under pressure and public administrations must evolve to accommodate new forms of public participation. Participation processes may reproduce or disrupt existing power inequalities. Through a multi-method empirical study of "Participation Requests," a new legislative policy tool to open up public services in Scotland, this article addresses an empirical gap on governance-driven democratic innovations (DIs). We use Young's distinction of external and internal inclusion and find Participation Requests replicate the pitfalls of traditional forms of associative democracy. We contend that DIs should be co-produced between institutions and communities to bring a participatory and deliberative corrective to temper bureaucratic logics.

Climate change poses serious risks for rural livelihoods and food security in Rwanda. At the same time, a significant number of Rwandan farmers pool their resources together through cooperatives and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) in order to increase productivity. Therefore, it is important to consider on the one hand the future impacts of climate change on the microfinance sector in Rwanda, and on the other to ensure that the benefits of microfinance can decrease rural residents' vulnerability to climate impacts. This research project focuses on the clients of Urwego Bank, one of Opportunity International UK's local partners in a development project funded by the Scottish Government, with the aim to provide microcredit loans to 8,500 smallholder farmers working in government-supported agricultural cooperatives. The study specifically investigates the impacts of small loans on the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of farmers in southern and western Rwanda (Huye and Rubavu districts). The study involved field visits to the districts of Huye (Southern Province) and Rubavu (Western Province). Both regions are being increasingly affected by climate change in the form of increasing drought spells and erratic rainfall. Farmers involved in this study formed part of two distinct forms of associations: a rice cooperative (Huye field site) and VSLAs specialised in potato production (Rubavu site). Membership of these allows access to Urwego Bank loans used to procure seeds and fertiliser. A total of 28 interviews were conducted: 24 with farmers (20 cooperative/VSLA members and 4 non-members), 3 with Urwego Bank staff and one with a government agency representative. The study was supplemented by analysis of documents, including government reports and policies, and grey literature. The farmers in the study viewed loans as one of the most effective ways to increase agricultural productivity and income. Loans increase disposable incomes in the short term, allowing farmers to direct resources to other household expenses. The loans also give farmers access to higher quality seeds and fertiliser, helping them to close the 'yield gap'. Specific aspects of the Urwego Bank model, including cashless loan delivery, the timing and efficiency of loan disbursement were also valued by the farmers interviewed. Most participants had direct experience of both droughts and floods in recent years. Farmers reported a range of adverse climate impacts on their crops, which could significantly reduce harvests. These had led to food scarcity, financial difficulties - with several mentions of struggling to pay for school fees – and migration of labourers. To cope with climate impacts, participants reported to have implemented hydrological solutions (contours and water channels), changed farming practice (planting earlier, crop rotation, or climate-resilient crops), increased pesticide use, engaged in off-farm income generation or made changes to their financial management. Microloans of fertilisers were perceived to ensure at least some harvest and thus income, even in adverse conditions, which helped participants cope with climate impacts. In some instances, the seeds provided through microloans by Urwego Bank appeared to be of climate-resilient variety. Microloans were not available for other climate adaptations, such as contour digging, irrigation or pesticide application. Overall, the loans seemed to provide greater financial flexibility which helped with general expenses. However, several participants reported that paying back the loans to the cooperative was challenging after harvests had failed. The financial and 'good agricultural practice' training provided by Urwego Bank was generally perceived as helpful by the farmers and appeared to include broader farming guidance not directly related to the seed or fertilisers provided. There was however no evidence that long-term impacts of fertiliser or pesticide use on water and soil quality were considered during the training, something that is recommended in Rwandan government policies. Non-members indicated that not having access to training could be an impediment to adaptation but that they had sometimes learned from neighbours. Cooperatives and VSLAs serve both as a safety net and a catapult for their members' economic and social development by way of enhanced access to loans, training and markets. However, interviews with both members and non-members suggest that there is also the risk of reduced social mobility (involving technical, economic, social and political entry barriers that complicate access to such groups) and consequently growing socio-economic stratification, posing a serious challenge to inclusive development. Study findings do not support the theoretical effectiveness of the 'trickle-down' approach to development, whereby increasingly productive farmers will indirectly share their wealth with poorer farmers. Farmers reported that both the cooperative and VSLAs did not have any major issues with repaying loans for members who have defaulted, which protects Urwego Bank from financial loss. Farmers and Urwego Bank employees highlighted that there is an informal understanding between the Bank and its clients whereby there is a certain degree of flexibility in repayment if crops are negatively affected by changes in weather. While this certainly benefits the clients, questions remain on the financial sustainability of the Urwego Bank model if the frequency and intensity of climate events increases in the future. Farmers' feedback on how their livelihoods can be improved include changes to the purpose, scope and timing of loans, training opportunities, meteorological information, crop insurance and connections to other development partners. The research team suggest a number of recommendations centred on similar issues (loan purpose, training, and crop insurance) as well as on the financial, social and environmental sustainability of the microfinance sector, the needs of young people, partnerships, the need for large-scale investments and future research directions.