Sociology Topic: Policy Briefing on Housing Inequality

 You work for a local housing organisation* (local authority, housing association or co-operative) in Scotland.  You are required to write a policy briefing for your organisation, which explores the contribution housing can make to tackling inequality.   Your task  In general terms, a policy briefing presents research findings on a particular policy problem to key stakeholders, alongside recommendations for action – see these helpful guidelines (Links to an external site.) on writing briefings, as well as these top tips (Links to an external site.) from the UK Parliament’s POST team.  Briefings generally have a short, accessible style with appropriate referencing (please use Stirling HarvardLinks to an external site.) – good examples are the CaCHELinks to an external site. policy briefings, the CHR BriefingsLinks to an external site. or those produced by Stirling colleaguesLinks to an external site..  Note how they use headings, bullet points and text boxes to good effect.   The briefing should summarise the evidence on the policy problem, and critically discuss the research that shows the key contributions housing can make – given the limited word count you may wish to focus on a particular aspect of inequality (e.g. affordability, homelessness, poverty etc).   You should end the report with some ‘Recommendations for Policy and/or Practice’.  To get beyond description it is also important to reflect on the challenges and/or constraints housing organisations face in tackling inequality.   The briefing should be relevant for the type of organisation you are writing for.  There will be different issues for different sectors and/or types of organisation.  So please clarify your organisation in the introduction so that the scope and audience for your report is clear (e.g. policy context may vary between social and private sector for example).   You will need to do your own library search to build your sources of evidence, but the module resource list and the reference list  will be a good starting point.  In short, this task requires you to build your research skills (e.g. navigating library resources), summarise your knowledge and understanding of the literature succinctly, and to communicate your argument in a clear and coherent way.  It is also vital to tailor your message for your intended audience.   There is no need to use dedicated publishing software; a word document will suffice.  However, if you’re adding tables/images etc I’d recommend saving your file in pdf formcgxat to stop things moving around.