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- Blog
- 19th Dec 2012
Designing interventions in partnership with the people who are going to deliver them
One of Professor Thaler's mantras is "we can't do evidence based policy without evidence". As a team, we are keen advocates of the use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in government. But when talking about our trials we are often confronted with the question: "How do you decide what to…
- Blog
- 8th Jan 2013
Randomised controlled trials in public policy
Dr Ben Goldacre’s Radio 4 programme about the use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in public policy is well worth a listen.The programme includes guest appearances from members of the Behavioural Insights Team, with whom Ben wrote a paper on how policymakers can use RCTs to test new interventions.
- Blog
- 20th Mar 2013
Communicating best practice
This month the government announced plans to set up "What Works" centres to gather, review, and disseminate best practice across a number of policy areas.Dissemination of research findings, particularly in an age of devolution, is of critical importance. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs), which are easy to understand (compared with other,…
- Publication
- 15th Apr 2014
Clinical Judgement and Decision-Making in Children’s Social Work: An analysis of the ‘front door’ system
In May 2013, the Secretary of State for Education and the Prime Minister commissioned the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) to undertake a project to look at social workers’ decision-making. Given the potential breadth of this project, and the limited resources available, BIT and the Department for Education (DfE) decided to…
- Academic publication
- 25th Oct 2014
The Use of Descriptive Norms in Public Administration: A Panacea for Improving Citizen Behaviours?
Recent years have seen a growth in the use of social norm messages by local and national governments. These messages have been primarily used to induce desired behaviours among the non-compliant minority by pointing to the compliance of the majority.
- Blog
- 26th Nov 2014
What Works? The UK’s new What Works centres show results at first public presentation
Yesterday saw the publication of a collection of early conclusions from the What Works Network - the family of institutions created to put evidence in the hands of commissioners and professionals. Even if you hadn’t heard of the What Works centres before, you’ll soon start to see their influence in…
- Blog
- 20th Apr 2015
BIT to partner with US cities through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities Initiative
New partnership will help to launch US operations for BIT The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) has entered into a three-year partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies on its new What Works Cities initiative. The $42 million project endeavors to build on existing innovation at the city-level by helping mayors and local leaders…
- Blog
- 4th Feb 2016
Stories from the States
As part of BIT North America’s work with the Bloomberg Philanthropies What Works Cities initiative, we have launched ten randomized control trials in six cities from Kentucky to California in the last six months. While we wait for the results, we thought we’d share three stories that shed some light…
- Blog
- 4th Mar 2016
How can a letter encourage us to pay our parking fines?
Like death and taxes, parking tickets are a fact of life - especially in urban areas. While no driver likes seeing that slip of paper tucked under their windshield wiper, parking tickets serve important functions - like keeping busy roadways free of impediments and making parking fair to all drivers.…
- Blog
- 3rd May 2016
How can a letter increase sewer bill payments?
As more residents and businesses fail to pay their sewer bills, cities across the United States have had to resort to turning off water services to prompt them to pay. In some cities, sewer charges are included on the water bill and collected by the utility company. This makes it…