We then re-ran the consultation programme, first taking the four issues back to a sector leaders’ meeting to seek their views on their importance and feasibility. We next went back to our Community Involvement and Engagement groups and held two further workshops. Again, extensive discussions yielded invaluable insights. It is fair to say that there was not a universally agreed view on which one topic was the most important. This is perhaps not unexpected given the wide constituency that we worked with, but did require careful navigation and robust prioritisation frameworks to help us to arrive at our final research topic. We learned a great deal about the value of consultation, and the need to be prepared to adapt, respond and compromise to arrive at an agreed position. But reflecting the views of all those involved was vital in ensuring the relevance of our research project.

So where did we end up? Our project, combining some of the original ideas, will investigate local authority commissioning practices and their impact on care worker pay, terms and conditions of employment and ultimately recruitment and retention. If we can identify better ways of commissioning, then we may be able to design better employment practices that will attract people into and keep them in the sector. We are about to start on the next phase of research, which is co-designing and -delivering the research with all the groups who were involved in the initial consultations. We are looking forward to this process, in the spirit of robust and constructive partnership. We are deeply grateful to those who have already been involved and those who will continue to be so for the supportive manner in which they have engaged with us and how generously they have given of their time. We look forward to the next three years doing the research and aspire to produce research findings that will truly generate change in the sector.