Evaluation of Family Friendly Scheme
September 2011
Summary
The Family and Parenting Institute (FPI) is a charity aiming to create a more family-friendly UK. We are seeking to commission a research agency to evaluate the impact of our Family Friendly scheme over the course of two years.
The Family Friendly scheme has been developed to allow organisations from across the private, public and third sector to engage with families both who are their customers and service users; and their employees who have family commitments. Family Friendly addresses the concern highlighted in FPI’s Populus poll in March 2010, when just 6% of respondents said that they view the UK as very family friendly.
This Invitation to Tender sets out the parameters of the work we are seeking to commission, the budget available and timelines, and our views on the potential methodological approach (although we would welcome alternative approaches to achieve the objectives of this research).
The total budget available is £20,000. This amount is inclusive of VAT and all expenses. We wish the project to report interim first year findings in March 2012 and the second year report in April 2013.
Bids should be submitted on or before 14th October 2011. If an interview stage is then considered to be necessary this will take place the w/c 24th October 2011.
We are happy to answer any questions about this research bid, and to share any further information we offer with all interested parties. If you do have any questions, please contact:
Charlene Overend, Corporate Fundraising Manager, 020 7424 3477 charlene.overend@familyandparenting.org
Yan-Shing Chang, Research and Policy Officer, 020 7424 3480
yan-shing.chang@familyandparenting.org
1. About FPI
The Family and Parenting Institute, an independent charity established in 1999, is a charity that promotes the needs and interests of children and families in the UK. We work to understand the ways the UK can become a more family friendly society. Our research, policy and practical support is used to advise policy makers, practitioners within public services and businesses.
Ongoing and recent activities include:
FPI managed the Parenting Fund from 2006-2011 enabling 350 voluntary organisations to directly reach 220,000 parents and over 91,000 children.
FPI’s Family Friendly Report Card is an annual assessment of the UK’s progress towards becoming a family friendly society. The Report Card assesses indicators to track socio-economic and policy developments.
Family Room is an alliance of 14 leading family charities, convened by FPI, at the three main political Party Conferences.
Family Forum, convened by FPI, is a quarterly meeting of the Chief Executives of the 30 leading family charities meeting to discuss pertinent issues, share intelligence and look at collaborative working.
FPI is a partner in the DfE-funded Strategic Partnership for Families, supporting the voice, sustainability and capacity of the family sector.
2. About Family Friendly
Funded by the Department for Education (DfE), the Family Friendly scheme was launched on the 28th June 2011 with six pioneer organisations: Barclays Bank, BT, DfE, easyJet, Gatwick Airport and Poole Family Information Service. Organisations who sign up to the scheme must agree to the Family Friendly Pledge, a universal principle that applies to every organisations; they will submit a Declaration, which outlines the policies, practices and facilities that are already in place to make the organisation family friendly; and they will write a Promise, which details what they will develop further and improve upon over the year of membership.
Family Friendly offers member organisations a digital platform to engage with families through our website www.WeAreFamilyFriendly.org where their declarations and promises are displayed. Visitors to the site can leave feedback comments for the members on their pages, with the members being given the opportunity to respond to these comments.
In addition the scheme is being supported by five partner organisations from across the family sector that is developing support modules and other materials for the scheme. The partners are Action for Prisoners’ Families, Contact a Family, Fatherhood Institute, Gingerbread and Grandparents Plus.
The aim of this two year project is for 297 organisations to subscribe to the scheme making at least two promises each year to become more family friendly. The member organsiations will assess their satisfaction with the scheme and declare their progress on their web-profile. And mystery shoppers will report their findings on the family friendliness of a random selection of members each year. And finally families will also provide feedback, rating their experience through our Family Friendly website.
The annual FPI Family Friendly Report card will give an overall rating of family friendliness across four separate areas which will further demonstrate at an indicative level the project’s wider impact.
3. Evaluation approach
FPI wishes to commission an evaluation of the Family Friendly scheme to understand where it is creating value and where it could be improved for future years.
Being able to demonstrate the value of the programme will enable FPI to improve the planning and targeting of activities, to communicate impact to a range of stakeholders including potential new businesses, and aid the future development and success of the programme.
FPI is open in terms of different approaches for this study and whatever methodology is deemed appropriate. Our thinking is set out below:
The research should construct an evaluation framework for the scheme, building on work we have already developed, that will be easy to use by those working on the project. The research should consider whether we are recording and collecting the right data to be able to evaluate the success of the scheme in the future.
We would expect the researchers to want to speak to key stakeholders about the relative successes and issues for further development at the early stages of this initiative. Stakeholders include (but perhaps are not limited to) the Department for Education, businesses who have signed up as pioneers, and FPI staff. We would like to understand motivations for getting involved, aspirations for the scheme, and thoughts about how well it is delivering so far.
We would like a first year report that focuses more on what is working and not working so well about the process of the scheme and whether we are recording the right information to evaluate in the second year. The second year report we might expect to focus on demonstrating where evidence is available about the scheme having impact.
It would be of additional value if this piece of research could enable us to undertake a return on investment or cost-benefit analysis of the scheme but this may not be appropriate or feasible for this piece or work.
4.Research Outputs and Responsibilities
The appointed researchers would have responsibility for carrying out the following tasks:
Development of an evaluation framework for the Family Friendly scheme
Examination of FPI’s data collection and project management methods and whether it will enable effective evaluation
Stakeholder interviews with the main partners including the six pioneer businesses, 5 charity partners, Departmental officials, and key FPI staff.
Year 1 report highlighting early findings and making recommendations for improvements
Year 2 report summarising the areas in which programme is creating value, offering a structure for the on-going evaluation of the scheme, and making recommendations for improvements.
We intend to make the evaluation reports publicly available.
5. Project Timeline and Budget
The total budget available for the project is £20,000. This amount is inclusive of VAT, research expenses, incentives for participants and any published outputs.
The payment will be in three parts, the first payable on commissioning the work, the second on satisfactory completion of the Year 1 report and the second on satisfactory completion of Year 2 report.
30th SeptemberInvitation to Tender
14th OctoberDeadline
w/c 24th October Interviews
March 2012 Year 1 report delivered
April 2013 Year 2 report delivered
6. Criteria for successful bids and timeline
The bid document supplied should be no longer than 12 pages long, although supporting documents submitted as background information can exceed this.
Responses to this tender must include:
- Examples of previous relevant work carried out
- Methodology
- Estimated timescales and milestones
- Budget, with a detailed breakdown of costings for each element
- Details of the project team and short biographies and details of any third party you will be working with
Bids should be submitted on or before 14th October 2011. If an interview stage is considered to be necessary this will take place the w/c 24th October 2011.
The following criteria will be used to select the successful research partner:
- Understanding of brief
- Proven relevant research expertise
- Rigour of research approach
- Creativity, enthusiasm and innovation with brief
- Capacity to deliver and manage project
- Demonstration of value for money
We are happy to answer any questions about this tender and will share any further information we offer in response to questions to all interested parties. If you do have any questions, please contact:
Charlene Overend, Corporate Fundraising Manager, 020 7424 3477 charlene.overend@familyandparenting.org
Yan-Shing Chang, Research and Policy Officer, 020 7424 3480
yan-shing.chang@familyandparenting.org
