Business plan 2023-2024

Introduction

Our vision is for high quality health and social care research today, which improves everyone’s health and wellbeing tomorrow.

We help realise this by making it easy to do research that people can trust. Established in 2011, we have transformed UK research regulation and governance by simplifying processes, removing duplication and reducing timelines. We have better supported the research community by putting people first.

About us

The Health Research Authority is an independent arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). We have more than 260 staff in England who work at home and in our offices in Bristol, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Nottingham. Our staff are supported by a community of 850 people who volunteer their time generously to help us deliver our services, alongside NHS staff and members of the public who advise us on our work.

The HRA is led by a Board chaired by Professor Sir Terence Stephenson which includes our Chief Executive, Matt Westmore, two executive directors and four non-executive directors. Two further directors also attend. The Board has strategic oversight, agreeing high-level policy and ensuring that the HRA is run effectively and efficiently. Find out more about our leadership.

We are one of many organisations that work together in the UK to regulate different aspects of health and social care research. Most of our services apply to research undertaken in England, but we also work closely with the other countries in the UK to provide a UK-wide system.

Our role

To make it easy to do research that people can trust, we:

• work with people to understand what you want research to look like and act on this so that you can trust research
• make sure that people taking part in research are treated ethically and fairly, by reviewing and approving health and social care research studies that involve people, their tissue or their data
• work with other organisations across the UK to make sure that, wherever you are, research studies can be set up smoothly and are always subject to the same scrutiny before they start
• work with others to co-ordinate and standardise the way research is set up and managed
• encourage and support transparency about research, so that you can find out what research is taking place, and what it found
• are one of the gatekeepers of patient data, making sure that your information is protected if it is used for research
• put in place and support the digital platforms to help research get set-up and managed in the UK

You can find out more about our work and what we do on this website, in our monthly newsletter HRA Latest and via social media.

Our strategy

This is our second year of delivering our three-year strategy.

Our enabling pillars will help us achieve our strategy. They set our culture, making sure our people can do their best work and that our technology meets the needs of the people who use and benefit from our services.

These enabling pillars are:

Digital: Use digital technology well to do our work

We will design, create, and support simple to use, accessible systems that make it easier for researchers to do trusted research and for patients and the public to find out about that research.

Improving ourselves: Always look for ways to do things better

Our people are key to our strategy. We will build a diverse and inclusive organisation giving our people the tools and support that they need.

How we will make change happen

There are three key aspects to our approach to change. We will be:

• user-centred, with people at the heart of everything we do
• iterative and agile, trying new things and learning from them
• collaborative, working with others to make progress more quickly

We will split the year into three monthly time periods and co-ordinate our change work to provide predictability for people using our services, our stakeholders and our staff. Where things will take more than three months, we will look for ways to break down the longer-term goal into smaller pieces of work to manage performance and to make sure there is effective governance of our work.

In 2022-23 we worked together to define the culture we needed to enable innovation and change to deliver our strategy. This model sets out six core elements to nurture this culture. In 2023-24 we aim to further develop this model to support our strategy.

Our plans for 2023-24

Everything we do helps us to achieve our vision. Our strategy runs through our planning, performance, innovation and change, people and risk management processes. These processes make sure we successfully deliver on our priorities and that our people understand their role in achieving our strategy.

We are committed to delivering on government priorities as part of our strategy and business plan development. This includes the Life Sciences Vision, Build Back Better: our plan for growth, and NHS Long-Term Plan

2023-24 business plan by strategic objectives

Include: Health and social care research is done with and for everyone

Include everyone in research

Meaningfully involving people in all stages of research and sharing its findings is crucial to earn people’s trust. It helps us do better research that can improve care.

What success will look like: More diverse groups of people with relevant lived experience are involved in all stages of research and are able to take part, with the findings shared publicly so that they can be used to improve care.

Ask you what you want research to look like and act on this

Research must address the issues that matter to you to earn your trust.

What success will look like: People taking part in research have a better experience because researchers know how to put them first and do things in a way that earns their trust. Over time, more people will feel confident and able to take part in research, helping us to improve care for everyone.

Involve you in the HRA

Increase public involvement in how we make decisions.

What success will look like: We make better decisions, informed by a diverse group of people with relevant lived experience.

Accelerate: Research findings improve care faster because the UK is the easiest place in the world to do research that people can trust

Save money and time so that you can focus on doing good research

To earn people’s trust, research projects involving people, their tissue or their data need several approvals before they can go ahead.

What success will look like: It is easier for researchers to find out what they need to do and earn the approvals for their research to go ahead.

Create a new online system to help you make research happen

The approvals that each research project needs come from different organisations depending on the research. We aim to connect the steps that are part of doing research and make them easy to follow.

What success will look like: A new online system is helping researchers take the steps needed to make their research happen.

Support new ways to do research

We will make it possible to do new types of research here in the UK so that we can get better, quicker answers and put people first.

What success will look like: The UK is a destination to do new types of research that people can trust.

Digital: Use digital technology well to do our work

We will design, create and support simple to use, accessible systems that make it easier for researchers to do trusted research and for patients and the public to find out about that research.

Design digital systems in a human-centred way

Process automation and integration improves our work

Improve: Ensuring we have the right culture and capability to deliver our strategy

Our people deliver our strategy. We will enable a diverse and inclusive organisation giving our people the tools and support that they need.

Continuously learn, improve and innovate

Overall progress will be measured by:

• our staff survey question: ‘I have the learning and development I need to do my job effectively’ (68% in 2022, benchmark 65%)
• celebrating and making more transparent a growing number of improvement activities each quarter (three each quarter)

Be a great place to get involved and work

Overall progress will be measured by:

• maintain our staff engagement score in our annual survey (82% in 2022, benchmark 67%)
• improving the annual survey score for ‘I am satisfied with what the staff forum is achieving for staff and it is meeting my expectations’ (40% in 2022)

Be committed to environmental sustainability and achieving net zero

In 2023-24 we will embed environmentally sustainable practices into our daily business, making sustainability the norm.

Overall progress will be measured by:

• reducing our carbon usage and waste each year measured quarterly

Financial plan

Our total funding anticipated for this year is £25.2 million (£24.3 million in 2022-23). We receive most of this directly from the Department of Health and Social Care.

In 2023-24 this funding, known as grant-in-aid (GIA), will be £18.5 million (£18.9 million in 2022-23) to fund revenue activities, £2.8 million (£2.6million in 2022-23) to fund capital investment and £3.2 million (£1.7 million in 2022-23) to fund non-cash revenue (for example, depreciation).

The rest of our revenue comes from two other sources:

• £0.2 million from NHSE to fund regulatory work supporting data driven technologies (£0.7 million in 2022-23)
• £0.4 million from the devolved administrations as part of cost sharing arrangements for ethics review and UK wide research governance (£0.4 million in 2022-23)

The HRA is committed to providing value to the public purse.

We achieve this in two ways:

• streamlining the research set-up process, driving economies and efficiencies to the research sector
• achieving ‘more for less’ in our services and policy work, by continuously improving our processes, reducing duplication and using technology to add value and reduce costs

We have planned for a balanced income and expenditure position for 2023-24 on our core services and activities. The financial plan table sets out our sources of revenue funds for 2023-24. It also shows how these compare with our 2022-23 financial plan.

Capital funding

Our plans suggest a capital funding requirement of £2.8 million (£2.6 million in 2022-23). This funding supports our essential research systems transformation programme as well as core infrastructure (estates and technology). Capital funding has been confirmed by DHSC. The following table shows how capital funding will be invested.

Research systems transformation

The HRA research systems transformation programme is in the process of gaining approval from DHSC Investment Committee.

Estimated funding and activity related to this programme are included within this business plan for 2023-24 with comparatives from 2022-23 based on our proposed business case adjusted for DHSC funding parameters.

Financial plan 2023-2024