A study to establish the work that researchers in the Scottish Government and Scottish local government need to do to meet present statutory requirements has been commissioned by the Scottish Government and LARIA in Scotland.

The research aims to:

• explore the extent to which research is an explicit or implicit requirement for local authorities and the Scottish Government in order to meet their statutory responsibilities;
• understand and describe the full range of demands imposed on government researchers through recent statutory requirements;
• establish any other legal requirements that dictate the day-to-day work undertaken by government researchers;
• understand the capacity requirements for government researchers to undertake the work they are constitutionally bound to do;
• determine whether action needs to be taken to build capacity in the field.

The project is being conducted in two phases. Phase One will map the statutory requirements and analyse the core areas of research. Phase Two will consider how the range of work central and local government researchers carry out fits onto the mapping identified in Phase One, and the capacity requirements.

Hexagon Research and Consulting and associates, Adrian Colwell and Paula Gilder, wil be carrying out the research and are seeking the views of researchers on the following issues:

• Are you aware if the work you carry out is statutorily required? If yes:
  • what is the statutory basis of the requirement/
  • what research is carried out and how?
  • who receives the statutorily required research/what use is made of it?
• Are you aware of any research that you are asked to carry out (e.g. for the Scottish Government) that is not statutorily required?
• Have the demands on you/your authority's research capabilities increased in the last three years? If yes, why and what are the implications of this?

Any comments and views can be sent directly to the This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or can be posted on the Statutory Research Requirement discussion board on the AIR community of practice. Updates on the project will also be posted on this discussion board.