Performance analysis

Key performance indicators and benefits, linked directly to our strategic aims, measure the impact our work has on the wider research ecosystem. These KPIs and benefits have been co-created with our user community who through various forms of engagement have helped develop our benefits profiles so that we can define and monitor the improvements to the system that make a difference to their work and ultimately outcomes for patients and the public.

At a high level, our KPIs provide assurance and performance information to our Board, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the wider research community. Internally, they drive continuous improvement for our operational teams. The way that we manage our performance and its relationship with risk and uncertainty is explained in more detail in our governance statement.

As a learning organisation, we regularly review and refine our performance management and reporting systems to ensure we continue to drive our performance in meeting our strategic aims and statutory requirements. Monthly operational KPIs reporting and monitoring, strategic quarterly performance reporting to our leadership team and Board combined with user satisfaction data and financial reporting all provide assurance and enable effective performance management. Individual staff objectives that complement and reflect these organisational objectives are developed during the annual appraisal process and monitored during regular one-to-ones between staff and their managers.

Strategic ambition 1: Championing health and social care research

Pushing for greater research transparency

Research transparency is central to ethical research. It means registering research studies, making results public, giving access to data and feeding back the findings to participants. 

Openness about individual studies promotes effective use of research funding and ensures that participants’ time and commitment is not wasted. 

Key deliverables:

• transparency in research survey completed and published.
• paper on clinical trial registration submitted to British Medical Journal – establishing baseline for trial registration
• awareness of the requirement to register is 24 per cent and registration rate for clinical trials is 80 per cent
• Science and Technology Select Committee published the HRA’s response to their report on research transparency, setting out our commitment to drive improvements.
• Research Transparency Strategy Group set up to develop strategy in 2019.

Promoting public involvement in research

When researchers involve patients, service uses and carers in the design of their research, they benefit from better recruitment and retention in the study – ultimately leading to better outcomes

Key deliverables:

• publication of guidance to help researchers better demonstrate what public involvement there has been in their research applications and the difference it has made.
• completion of a series of public involvement blogs on the HRA website about the new guidance in use from a range of perspectives.
• a set of HRA public involvement expectations for research applications are in development.
• summary of results of analysis/impact monitoring of new public. 

Strategic ambition 2: Making it easier to conduct high quality research in the UK

Streamlining processes for researchers

We want the research approvals process to be as smooth and efficient as possible so that new studies can be set up quickly. This will maintain the UK as an attractive place to carry out research, to the benefit of patients and the health and care system.

Key deliverables:

• reduced timelines for gaining study approval for REC studies have been maintained and targets have been achieved
• non-REC studies – timelines remain outside 15-day target although significant reductions achieved from previous year
• new end-to-end integrated process developed and implemented from 1 April 2019
• Customer Charter published, 78 per cent of customers scored overall service highly
• continue to monitor data on predictable outcomes for different types of studies to inform our process development in this area.

Supporting researchers through their applications

We want to enable researchers to do their job well, helping them think through the ethical aspects of their research, preparing a good quality application for approval and being clear about what is expected of them. We also want to ensure that research ethics committees are consistent in their approach and provide good ethics advice to researchers. 

Key deliverables:

• delivered more than 9,000 person-hours of learning.
• more than 3,900 unique users of eLearning, with 75 per cent satisfaction. 
• new Learning Management System implemented.
• applications with missing documentation for assessment reduced from 30 per cent in first six months to 27 per cent in last six months (average) – an improvement of 15 per cent from last year
  
• website achieved average 71 per cent user satisfaction. 
• published new blog series to support researchers.

Developing innovative and clear policy to support UK-based research

The UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research sets out the principles for lawful and ethical research involving people, their tissue and their data. Our guidance and advice applies those principles to particular aspects of research to promote ethical research which promotes the interests of participants.

Key deliverables:

• Governance arrangements for Research Ethics Committees (GAfREC) harmonised and implemented
• UK-wide quality assurance procedure for Technical Assurance agreed
• Pharmacy Assurance – second phase of rollout announced, phase III oncology CTIMPs now being accepted
• new IRAS guidance published - ionising radiation exposures in research 
• model non-commercial agreement published.

Strategic ambition 3: Developing a proactive, strategically focused organisation

Enhancing our strategic engagement and intelligence 

We want to be responsive to researcher, patient and public need to enable improvements to the research process and ultimately add increased value to the research ecosystem. 

Key deliverables:

• successfully recruited our Chief Executive
• successfully recruited three Non-Executive Directors
• HRA Board agreed an outline engagement strategy for key policy areas (data-driven technology, public involvement, transparency)
• reorganisation of HRA Approval and Policy and Engagement Directorates to better respond to the research community and patient and public need
• executive team engaged externally with the research, health and social care community at least 20 per cent of their time.

Increasing our visibility and external audiences' understanding of us

Our staff, Board members and volunteers are the public face of the HRA. We want to develop our approaches so that we make the most of our engagement and enhance external audience’s understanding of what we do, what we stand for and where we can add value. 

Key deliverables:

• 73,285 unique page views to the news pages on our website.
• 3,868 Twitter followers.
• HRA took part in Evidence Week for the first time and showed how MPs can ask the right questions
• 45 staff members (21 per cent) had an opportunity to interact outside their direct role at HRA, lower than last year, due to significant organisational change activity in year.     

Strategic ambition 4: Capitalising on technological developments

Modernising our research application and monitoring systems

Following an independent review of our research technology systems in 2017, we agreed a transformation programme to deliver modern, intuitive systems, driven by user need and able to accommodate anticipated changes in the legislative landscape. 

Key deliverables:

• Phase 1 (new IRAS) of our research IT systems transformation programme substantially delivered on Pegasystem platform.
• collaborated with MHRA on the Combined Ways of Working (CWOW) project to inform the new IRAS development and meet or align with future Clinical Trials Regulations requirements
• introduced a tool to allow applicants to upload videos as part of their research application.

Understanding and supporting the important role of data

Data is changing the face of health and social care provision and is also a rich source for research that can take advantage of technology to analyse large data sets that hasn’t previously been possible.

Key deliverables:

• led the interpretation and implementation of GDPR for the health and care research sector
• well-received GDPR guidance for researchers provided on HRA website
• updated Code of Conduct for the use of data-driven healthcare technologies published, with signposting to HRA information.
• joint MHRA/HRA statement on electronic consent published in HRA Latest
• MORI report on public trust and confidence in collection and sharing of tissue and data produced in collaboration with HTA/NRC/Sciencewise.

Strategic ambition 5: Ensuring the HRA is governed effectively and provides value for money

Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our internal processes

We will be able to meet our strategic and operational objectives in a lean spending review environment.

Key deliverables:

• organisational change processes implemented across the HRA, impacting more than 75 per cent of our people and delivering 10 per cent reduction in FTEs.
• £700k savings achieved since 2017 to meet spending review requirements
• implemented central approach to estates and facilities management
• new approach to REC accreditation and quality control successfully implemented
• completed the Data Security and Protection Toolkit.

Understanding better the benefits and impact the HRA achieves and using technology more effectively to manage our work

We will be able to better understand, monitor and report on our impact to the research community and value we provide to the public purse. Technology offers new opportunities to streamline our day to day processes and understand better our performance. 

Key deliverables:

• training delivered by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on benefits realisation and new webinar created
• corporate benefits agreed and reported quarterly
• Audit and Risk Committee effectiveness assessment performed
• active member of ‘Future Services Programme’ Board, managing the replacement of IT infrastructure and associated contracts for the HRA and other health organisations
• developed IT strategy and roadmap with a focus on enabling technology to streamline processes and gain efficiencies
• rolled out Windows10, advance threat protection and Office 365 to all staff
• implemented improved self-service functionality on the employee staff record system to all staff and electronic expenses.

Our People

This year we have asked much of our staff and volunteer members to help us achieve a more streamlined and integrated service for the research community. We have actively engaged with a wide range of stakeholders, including staff and volunteer members as part of our transformation programme, redesigning our services and embracing technology to better meet user requirements. 

Throughout this change programme our dedicated staff and volunteer members have delivered excellent customer service and have met all but a handful of the monthly performance targets despite this backdrop of significant organisational change and restructure. 

While performance has been maintained, the process has, understandably had an impact on our people. Our approach, where we worked hard to explain the need for the organisational change and have actively engaged with our staff to design the new process has created a new structure which we believe will deliver an improved, integrated service for the research sector. 

Our staff understand the need for this change (92 per cent agreed with this statement in our annual staff engagement survey) and have worked hard throughout this time to deliver an excellent service to the research sector with 78 per cent of research applicants rating our service highly. However, overall staff engagement and morale has fallen this year based on our annual survey. 

We know that high engagement enables people to be the best they can be at work, recognising that this can only happen if people feel respected, involved, heard well led and valued by those they work for and with. We are therefore committed to reversing this trend and striving to achieve the target engagement score of 80 per cent. 

While our current score of 70 per cent is still better than the sector benchmark of 67 per cent, it is not at the level we believe we should be achieving. We take staff engagement very seriously and are committed to work with our staff to improve this score to achieve our target. Our people are our greatest asset and it is therefore essential that we listen to their feedback and put in place to steps reverse this trend. A full plan will be developed over the coming months and is expected to involve members of our staff forum who have already started feeding back more detailed information which will be used to prioritise and focus our actions. 

Financial review

Our accounts consist of primary statements (providing summary information about our income and expenditure in the year, our assets and liabilities at the end of the year and how we have managed our cashflows) and detailed notes to these statements. These accounts have been prepared based on the standards set out in the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM) to give a true and fair view.  

The HRA remained within agreed revenue and capital allocations for 2018/19 and our financial reporting targets were met throughout the year.  Our total funding for the year was £16,532k (2017/18: £14,200k), of which:

• £14,596k (2017/18: £13,400k) was revenue funding, from the Department of Health and Social Care
• £1,936k (2017/18: £800k) was capital funding from the Department of Health and Social Care which includes £1,136k relating to research IT systems transformation.  

Income received from cost sharing arrangements included:

• £186k from the devolved administrations for providing support and IT systems for the research ethics service
• £72k towards the costs of our London regional office from NHS Business Services Authority

Our total net expenditure for the year was £14,448k, (2017/18 £13,396k) resulting in an underspend on our committed revenue funding of £148k, 0.9%. This underspend relates specifically to transitional ‘ring-fenced’ funding for strategic workforce changes, achieved by reducing potential redundancy costs through actively redeploying staff into new and existing roles as well as carefully managing natural staff turnover.  

Prudent financial management and improved strategic investment appraisal procedures meant that the HRA fully used our cash revenue resources on business as usual activities. This reflects the leaner spending review environment and also our widening strategic remit. We have made sure this year that we have invested all our resources to achieve value for the research community and ultimately, patients and the public. 

Key activities funded this year:

• £6,991k (48 per cent) funded our core services including HRA Approval, the research ethics service and the confidentiality advisory service  
• £2,084k (14 per cent) supported our research IT systems, including amortisation costs of £926k
• £1,174k (eight per cent) funded our chief executive office, policy activities, corporate governance and external engagement costs. 

In addition, to our core statutory activities, we invested in specific strategic programmes:

• £685k on Research IT Systems transformation in addition to £1,498k capital costs
• £232k on IT infrastructure projects including the Future Services Programme (replacement of health IT infrastructure contract) and our upgrade to Windows 10 operating system including Advance Threat Protection and Office 365
• £73k on our service improvement programme. 

During 2018/19 we implemented a number of workforce changes to create structures to support our new integrated approval service and ensure we achieve our strategic aims. Our workforce will reduce by 10 per cent in 2019/20. Staff costs in 2018/19 increased by £629k, seven per cent on 2017/18 due to:

• new agenda for change terms and conditions, £183k
• additional expertise and backfill secured to support the research IT systems development £398k
• additional redundancy payments arising from workforce changes £120k
• organisational change efficiencies £70k.

Sustainability report

While the HRA may be exempt from formal reporting on a number of Green Government Commitments as it has less than 250 FTE staff, we are keen to demonstrate our commitment to the sustainability agenda. 

We will have achieved 2014 Government Estates Strategy target for space utilisation ratio of 8 sqm / full-time equivalent (FTE) staff member by 2019/20. To achieve this target, we have shared space with other government bodies (NHS Business Services Authority and NHS Blood and Transplant) to improve utilisation and reduce costs. 

We also encourage our people to work from home two days per week where business requirements allow and provide all our people with laptops to support mobile working. The 2018 Government Estates Strategy sets an ambitious target of 6 sq m/FTE occupancy ratio for all new government hubs. We believe this is achievable for the HRA and as part of our 2019 estates strategy review, we will consider what steps we need to take to enable this reduction as we prepare for our inclusion in the government hub programme. 

The HRA provides a national service including supporting 65 ethics committees located throughout England. Our people, staff and committee members, travel to deliver our services. Where possible, we encourage the use of public transport and actively promote the use of technology to collaborate and meet. Video conferencing is available in all our regional offices and all our staff are able to access Skype meetings from their dedicated laptops. The HRA regularly holds a variety of meetings ‘virtually’, negating the need to travel where it is practical to do so and also helping to support the health, safety and welfare of our people. 

Looking forward, we will continue to be guided by the Cabinet Office’s Smart Working – Code of Practice. We plan to embrace technology to improve our ability to collaborate and do more of our business without the need to travel. We are also keen to explore how we use technology to widen access to our services and aim to enable virtual attendance at 75 per cent of our ethics committee meetings by March 2020.