Meet the Team
Next Steps is a very important study. There is a dedicated research team whose job it is to design, carry out and report on the study. The team includes people from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), BMRB, GfK NOP and Ipsos MORI.
The Government Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has overall responsibility for the study. The other three organisations mentioned have interviewers who come and talk to you each year. The full list of contacts is as follows:
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DCSF
Helen Wood
Helen has recently taken over from Iain Noble as the DCSF Project Manager for the Next Steps study. She joined the team in August 2008. Her job is to ensure that the study is completed at the right time, in the right way and that the data produced from it is used as effectively as possible. Helen has previous experience of managing surveys of a broad range of people including prison staff, partners of benefit claimants and disabled people in the UK.
Andrew Ledger
Andrew is Team Leader for the DCSF team which runs Next Steps. He joined the Department in 2003, having worked previously in a number of other Government Departments. His main responsibility is to help to ensure that the Department has good quality information upon which to base its decisions and Next Steps is the single most important part of that. In his spare time, Andrew is one of the top amateur chess players in the country, although spare time is a rarity at the moment as his second son was born in January this year
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BMRB
BMRB is the longest established research agency in Britain, having been founded in 1933, and is based in Ealing in West London. As well as Next Steps we also work on a number of other major studies for central government including the British Crime Survey. The team at BMRB is led by Mark Peters, who is supported by Nick Howat, Carrie Harding and Emily Pickering.
Mark Peters
Mark joined BMRB Social Research in 1999. Before then he was a social researcher in another research agency. Mark has worked on a number of projects looking at education and employment issues on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and other government departments. Recently, he has worked for the DCSF on the Youth Cohort Study, a long established research study also about young people, as well as on studies about teachers and about higher education and universities. Mark heads up the Next Steps team at BMRB and has worked on the study since BMRB joined it in 2003. In his spare time, Mark spends a lot of time traveling to watch his favourite football team – Portsmouth!
Carrie Harding
Carrie has been one of the key members of the Next Steps team since she joined BMRB on its graduate scheme in Spring, 2005. Prior to this, Carrie had previously worked at BMRB on a placement year while at university - she obviously found it such an interesting place to work that she couldn't wait to come back! Carrie's role on the Next Steps project covers many different aspects from helping to put together the questionnaire to designing this website. Outside of work Carrie can regularly be found at the cinema where she enjoys watching all sorts of films, from the latest US blockbusters to more low key small budget productions.
Nick Howat
Nick has been working as a social researcher for 7 years and has been on the Next Steps project since 2003. In that time Nick has been involved in the development of the questions asked each year and in producing the computer data files for analysis. In addition to the Next Steps study, Nick has worked on a number of other projects while at BMRB including a study for the FA looking at the State of the Football Nation.
Emily Pickering
Emily is the newest member of the Next Steps team. She joined BMRB in 2007 after finishing university and is helping to run the project. Emily is on the graduate scheme at BMRB and is enjoying gaining more experience of research, after having worked for a small research company part-time while she was at university. Her role on Next Steps involves designing and writing the letters and emails that we send out to you, putting together the questionnaire and answering queries from Next Steps respondents. As well as Next Steps, Emily is working on another project for the DCSF about teachers workloads and school standards. Emily moved to London last summer and enjoys seeing West End musicals and plays in her spare time.
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GfK NOP
NOP was founded in 1957, and became part of the worldwide GfK research company in 2005. Our team are based in central London but we have offices all over the world. We work on a lot of very large studies like Next Steps including Living in Britain which is a study that has been running for 18 years! We also do a lot of work for central and local government. The team at GfK NOP is led by Nick Moon. Nick is supported by Nickie Rose and Nikki Steel.
Nick Moon
Nick is Managing Director of GfK NOP Social Research. He started there as a trainee in 1977 and has worked his way all the way to the top! Nick presented a paper based on the results of Next Steps at a conference in America in 2006, and this year he will be presenting another in Naples, jointly with Iain Noble from DCSF, using results from the Wave 3 interviews. There is now considerable interest in Next Steps, and in seeing the results of the study, not just here in the UK but all over the world. He and Iain have worked together on a number of research projects over the last 20 years (but still speak to each other) and in 1998 they were awarded the Market Research Society’s David Winton Prize for a joint research paper on telephone surveys. You may see Nick on television or hear him on the radio being interviewed about opinion polls, especially around the time of a General Election. Watch out for him!
Nickie Rose
Nickie has been at GfK NOP since she left university, although her first experience of survey research was in her gap year when she was a member of the team running the British Household Panel Survey (also known as Living in Britain). Iain Noble and Nick Moon were both also members of that team. Nickie has worked in a lot of the different parts of GfK NOP including the Family Group, where she was part of a study which set out to interview every set of twins born in the UK between 1994 and 1996. Nickie is currently working on several different projects, including one about health and safety at work, and, of course, Next Steps which she has worked on since 2003.
Nikki Steel
Nikki has been working at GfK NOP since 2003. Next Steps was the first project that she worked on when she joined and she has been on it ever since. Nikki manages the day to day running of NOP’s part in this study which is, sometimes, no easy task but she really enjoys it. She especially likes to visit all the different places around the country to give your interviewers all the help they need so that when they come to visit you, they know exactly what we want them to do. Nikki has worked on lots of other studies at GfK NOP including doing some research for the Royal Navy and research about children born in the millennium year.
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Ipsos MORI
MORI has been at the forefront of opinion research since its creation in 1969. We merged with Ipsos, the international research company, in October 2005, which means we now have a presence around the world. We have very broad experience, working alongside companies, central and local government and charities, conducting major studies such as Living in Wales, the Patient Experience Survey and Next Steps. The Next Steps team is based in Central London and is lead by Richard Davis. He will be assisted by Darcy Vasickova and Luke Daxon.
Richard Davis
Richard has over 20 years of experience in social research and is the oldest living member of the MORI Next Steps team. He has done research work for nearly every government department, but his particular interests lie in education, housing and regeneration. In his spare time, Richard is a keen runner. He has run 11 marathons including one in the Arctic Circle, and 2007 will see his fourth London marathon outing.
Luke Daxon
Luke has been working as a social researcher at Ipsos MORI since June 2005 and joined the Next Steps team in 2006. He has responsibility for liaising with interviewers and for answering queries from Next Steps participants. Outside of Next Steps, he has also been involved in employee research in the public sector, in health research and has worked on studies for local government and charities.
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Interviewer Case study – What’s it like to be an interviewer on the Next Steps Study?
JANET PARR
Interviewer and Field Supervisor in Sussex and the South East
It is always fascinating to meet people and listen to their different views and witness their different attitudes to circumstances and situations. That is why after working for BMRB for 30 years I still enjoy the work.
As an Interviewer, I have, over the years worked on many different surveys. Next Steps, which I have been involved with every year since it started, has been, for various reasons, one of the most interesting and rewarding surveys I have undertaken.
It is quite unusual for an Interviewer to go back and interview the same people each year and it is very enjoyable to revisit the same addresses and be involved with the whole family. They are invariably very welcoming – “I wondered when you were coming!? They often remember your first name and many soon “put the kettle on?. I really enjoy the interaction you have with a lot of the families and its surprising how you recall last year’s conversations which gives you the feeling that you really know them.
Most parents have strong views about their children’s education and their involvement in it; although this involvement generally decreases as the children get older. It has been quite enlightening to meet the young people each year and to learn about their aims and objectives. Obviously a lot of these alter as they get older, as do their views about life in general and what is important to them. It is a time of great change for many young people when they often make some very critical decisions that could affect them for the rest of their lives. It has been remarkable how most of them have matured and I have been surprised with the wide range of hobbies and activities young people are involved in both sporting and social, also how varied their aspirations are. I have found this aspect of the survey extremely fascinating and I feel that I have learned a lot about this age group.
Most of the families are very interested in the survey. They realise how important it is particularly if you tell them that the results are of interest to people in America and worldwide. Very often they ask questions about how it is going to be used and if I am coming back next year. It really is a unique study and I consider myself fortunate to be involved in it.
