Thinking inside the box

Not many organisations can count themselves as delivering up research that is regularly quoted on the BBC and prime-time news channels, but the institute for public policy research (ippr) has the knack and appears to achieve it effortlessly.

Boasting around 72 staff in the London office alone at the last count, it is a real powerhouse of research production, cranking out reports at a rate that would make most charity directors' eyes water, with the exception hopefully of Matthew Taylor, its former director, (now at the RSA) who gives way to Nick Pearce.

Finance officer Paul Clough describes ippr in corporate style as "the UK's largest progressive think-tank", with perhaps just a slight nod of recognition in the direction other 'less-progressive', humbler think-tanks. After all, they're a select bunch. Half of Paul's role is a typical charity split between finance and half as an enabling role for systems, structures and strategies. IT is indirectly and directly related, for instance HR depends on IT to do its job.

The institute produces a report every 2 weeks, a real conveyor belt of high quality productions, with such diverse material as the impact of air travel on the environment, the Lords' verdict on casinos, public acceptance of road pricing and the future of liberalism, as well as their quarterly Public Policy Research journal. Podcasts have recently joined the variety of media output resulting in an operation that's as broad as it is profound.

It wasn't always this way. "When I first arrived, every week began with a system crash with consequent downtime. Staff cited this as a major disruption; we could point to times where major bits of work were lost."

Fortunately, such weeks are now only a feature of the past and ippr are glad they made the leap to more outsourcing, especially with a company that "understands the charity culture. To have enough [IT] expertise, you need a really special person, but we use different specialities from Co-Operative Systems' skill sets - Deepak for FM [Facilities Maintenance], Mark for installation tasks."

With its remit of influencing policy makers to achieve good policy, the organisation has found their staff need to work informally as well as have a standardised system in place. "If we grow, we can just add another half day of FM" is the simple logic behind keeping systems development up to scratch, compared with a single full-time employee who clearly has to have a break and go on holiday at times.

"We don't spend so much time thinking about IT. We spend less money now that we have a stable system, and more time doing what we should do - innovative research."

Now there's food for thought.