The Modernising Government agenda stresses the need for policy to be evidence-based. Yet there is still a general perception that research rarely impacts on policy making. Strategies to increase the connection between evidence andpolicy have typicallyfocused on improving the evidence base and on enhancing communication between researchers and policy makers. By contrast, this paper examines an area that has largely been ignored: the influence of micro-institutional arrangements on the integration of evidence and policy. It examines the development of new institutional arrangements for linking research evidence and policy on drug misuse in England and in Scotland, using data from interviews and documentary analysis. This provides the basis for a re-consideration of a set of propositions from the literature about those features that encourage evidence use. A fine-grained analysis of conducive arrangements in the drug misuse policy area results in a revised list of propositions, which provide some preliminary guidance on those institutional arrangements likely to support evidence-based policy making.

In 2011, the Scottish Government took the decision to create a single, national police force, reconfiguring a structure of regional police forces, which had prevailed since the 19th century. Despite a strong narrative around localism in the legislation establishing Police Scotland, the new force that was established in 2013 quickly found itself at the centre of a debate around an emerging ‘crisis of localism’ as critics expressed concerns over the centralization of decision-making and a lack of sensitivity to local contexts. Drawing on qualitative research carried out in four communities across Scotland in 2016, the analysis presented in this article examines the experience of organizational change from the perspective of officers in local policing teams and from local stakeholders. The analysis is structured around the strategic aims of reform of improved local service delivery, more equal local access to specialist expertise, and enhanced connections with local communities. The article highlights the sense of exclusion from the decision-making surrounding the organizational changes associated with the implementation of reform experienced by local, rank-and-file officers.

This article describes an evaluation of a new system of monitoring police stops and searches in five pilot police sites, along with related research on the disproportionate police stopping and searching of people from minority ethnic backgrounds (“disproportionality”). The evaluation shows that the new monitoring is characterized by a substantial underrecording of encounters, notably of stops. A comparison of data from officer-defined and self-defined ethnic categories on stop and search forms highlights different strengths and weaknesses of both types of ethnic monitoring. The article also explores public satisfaction with the new system of recording, noting that people typically did not understand the purpose of the form at the time they received it. The research into disproportionality explored the “available” populations on the street - using video cameras mounted in moving vehicles - and compared them with resident populations and with those stopped and searched. The research shows that available populations were very different from resident populations. Overall, the findings suggested no general pattern of bias in stops and searches against people from minority ethnic groups. The research also finds that while stops and searches tended to be targeted at areas that have higher than average proportions of residents from minority ethnic groups, this largely reflected patterns of crime.

This article contributes to a growing body of research on the police reforms in Scotland. It examines the particular place given to prevention in public policy and its impact on police practice. We show how public policy reconfigured the place and purpose of prevention for the police, with a focus on safety, wellbeing, and the prevention of harm. The research draws on qualitative data collected in four areas as part of a 4-year evaluation of the police reforms. We refine a public health typology of prevention and operationalize it empirically for the first time to analyse cases of innovative practice. We distinguish a pattern of prevention practice heavily weighted towards secondary prevention, focused predominantly on issues of crime and disorder. In fewer cases, the police applied primary and tertiary prevention, with a focus on vulnerability and harm. Looking in detail at two cases, we illustrate the importance of collaboration for the police, which created opportunities and brought additional resources and expertise to support new prevention approaches which had a significant impact on effectiveness. The police realized collaborative advantage through common aims, trust-building, and leadership. We do not suggest this demonstrates a transformation in police prevention; it illustrates successful police innovation, and identifies the potential to go further. The implications for policy and practice are to recognize the value to the police of investing in new partnerships. They create opportunities for the police to collaborate, innovate, and focus more sharply on the prevention of harm.