RESEARCH TENDER DOCUMENT AND GUIDANCE

TITLE / EVALUATION OF AGE UK LONDON CAMPAIGNS PROJECT
ABOUT THE RESEARCH / About Age UK London
There are 1.9 million older people (over 50) living in London and that number is increasing all the time. Age UK London (AUKL) aims to reach out to as many of them as possible, to improve the quality of their lives and to enhance their status and influence in the capital.
AUKL is a regional charity working closely with local Age UKs and Age Concerns in each of the London boroughs and the national organisation Age UK. AUKL acts as the regional voice of independent Age UKs and Age Concernsin London and works hard to support and enhance local work and champion the voices of older people on a regional level. In order to work towards improving the quality of life and enhance the status and influence of older people in the capital, AUKL has four key areas of focus that are as follows:
- We promote and represent the views of older Londoners
- We campaign on real issues that make a difference to older people
- We work with older people’s organisations across London to enhance services
- We offer a range of products and services tailor-made for the over 50s (via Age UK London Trading)
AUKL’s regional campaigning project “Reaching to be Heard”, funded by the Big Lottery Fund has been running for five years.
This project comes to an end in December 2012. We intend to commission a final evaluation of the project. This is both in order to meet a funding obligation and in order to help demonstrate the value of AUKL’s work in the area of campaigns and policy-influencing.

DEFINITIONS

“Older People” – Attempts to define what is meant by “older people” are sometimes controversial and are particularly liable to be challenged by older people themselves. While recognising this difficulty the project has used the working definition “people who are at least 50 years old”.

BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH

Why the research is needed
AUKL is committed by project funding agreement to commissioning an independent evaluation of its campaigning work on behalf of older Londoners, supported by the Big Lottery Fund – BASIS project “Reaching to be Heard”. This project ends on 31.12.2012.
The evaluation should help AUKL to show the value of its campaigning work in a changing environment, and to identify possible improvements and adaptations. Among the external developments since the beginning of the project are:
-Public expenditure restrictions which affect services for older people, funding for local voluntary organisations and local engagement with older people;
-The coming into force of the Equality Act, increasing the duties on public authorities to take action in areas including age equality.
Work covered
The outcomes supported by the “Reaching to be Heard” project fall broadly into the categories of:
-Campaigning to raise the awareness of London regional stakeholders (statutory and other) on age issues;
-Work to increase the capacity of London borough-level Age UKs/Age Concerns to influence locally
Existing research
An initial independent evaluation of this project was commissioned at the end of Year 1 of the project (2008 – completed 2009). This evaluation concluded that the organisation was “punching above its weight”and producing good quality work to address age issues in London. On the other hand a risk was identified that this degree of success could raise unrealistic expectations of a small regional charity, and constraints were identified including the ability of local organisations to find time for campaigning.
In 2012, two teams of consultants produced internal reports for the organisation on taking forward campaign issues identified during the project, under the headings of:
-Health and Wellbeing
-Older People’s Contribution to London
Their recommendations included making future campaigns more focussed in number and scope, and more flexible in form, with a continued and strengthened emphasis on putting older people in the driving seat.
The same consultants in 2012 also produced externally-focussed reports on the same issues, which AUKL has published as:
-“On the Health and Wellbeing Campaign Trail”
-“Supporting Older People’s contribution to London”
Individual campaign reports produced since 2008 as part of the project will also be available to the evaluator, as will evaluations of other projects which may be relevant.
AUKL staff have also conducted online surveys about local organisations’ views of the work carried out, and compiled annual monitoring reports as specified by the project.

THEEVALUATION RESEARCHTASK AND OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this piece of research is to evaluate the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project progress in meeting a number of key objectives.
  • It will assess how well we have met agreed targets.
  • The evaluation will give evidence of the value that has been provided over the duration of the funding term.
  • It will identify possible improvements and adaptations to guide the future direction of campaigning and policy-influencing work after the conclusion of this project.
Outcomes and work areas of the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project to be evaluated fall mainly though not exclusively into the following two categories:
-Work to increase the capacity of London borough-level Age UKs/Age Concerns to influence locally
-Campaigning to raise the awareness of London regional stakeholders (statutory and other) on age issues;
the evaluation should provide answers to the following questions:
1) Through the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project, to what extent have the 36 London Borough Age UKs/Age Concerns increased their awareness of older people’s issues at a local and national level?
2) As a result of ‘Reaching to be Heard’, to what extent have the 36 London Borough Age UKs/Age Concerns developed a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to campaigning and influencing on older people’s issues?
3) To what extent has the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project increased awareness of older people’s priorities within key London regional statutory bodies, policy-makers, academic institutions and voluntary sector organisations which have an influence in older people’s lives?
4) To what extent has the “Reaching to be Heard” project succeeded in involving older people directly in prioritising issues of importance to them and their peers?
Answers to these four questions will provide AUKL with a final evaluation of the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project and will provide guidance for adaptations to be made to our future work.

TENDERING PROCESS

Applicants to the tender should write a proposal indicating how they will carry out the task above
The proposal should address the following headings:
  1. Aims
How the proposed research will meet the aims and deliver the outputs expected by the organisation.
  1. Research questions
Research questions are proposed above but applicants may propose improvements to them without deviating from the overall purpose of the research and without changing the expected outputs. If the applicant does not address this section it will be assumed that the research questions are those proposed above.
  1. Methodology
This should be a description of how the research data will be collected, how access to data will be secured, how the data will be analysed. The researcher should explain why the chosen methods are the best for addressing the research questions and producing the outputs within the time and resource constraints set for the project.
  1. Ethical issues
In this section the researcher should explain what professional ethical standards or principles will be applied to the conduct of the research, identify any ethical issues raised, explain how these ethical issues will be dealt with in the research, explain the process for ethical review.
  1. Outputs
The applicants should describe here the products they will produce from the research.
  1. Project team
Applicants should produce information on members of the project team, their responsibilities and the time they will each allocate to working on the project Staff CVs should be attached explaining qualifications, previous experience relevant to the research. Applicants should explain who will be taking the lead for the research.
  1. Risk assessment
The applicants should produce an analysis of possible risks that might jeopardise the progress of the research (e.g. a researcher leaving the project, failing to get access to data etc.) and the steps they have taken to reduce and manage the risks.
  1. References
Any literature quoted in the proposal should be referenced in this section.

OUTPUTS

The final output for this evaluation is to be a typed report (8,000 - 10,000 words)with accompanying executive summary research conclusions and substantive evidence. This should be prepared in both hard copy and in electronic form. The report should be suitable for use internally as well as for feeding back to those funding the ‘Reaching to be Heard’ project.
The start date for the project is 1 November 2012 and the final report should be submitted no later than 31 January 2013

MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTSAND BUDGET

1.AUKL will draw up a research agreement based on our standard contract for freelance consultants. The lead contact-person at AUKL is the Policy and Campaigns Manager. AUKL expects to meet the researchers at least once before the end of 2012 to review progress, and once thereafter assuming the research is not completed before the end of 2012. The research does not have an advisory group.
2. The maximum budget available is £5,000.

THE SELECTION PROCESS

Applications should be made by sending two hard copies and an electronic version, to:
Heather Vernon
Age UK London
First Floor, 21 St Georges Road
London SE1 6ES
e-mail
by 28 September 2012 at the latest.
Interviews will be held on 12 October 2012. Applicants selected for interview will be asked to make a presentation.
.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information please contact:
Gordon Deuchars
Policy and Campaigns Manager
Age UK London
Castle Works
First Floor, 21 St Georges Road
London SE1 6ES
Tel. 020 7820 6770
E-mail

10 September 2012

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