Professor Catherine Needham

• DPhil Politics, Nuffield College, Oxford (2004)
• MSc Politics Research, Nuffield College, Oxford (1999)
• BA (Hons) in Politics and Parliamentary Studies, University of Leeds (1996)

Catherine Needham graduated from the University of Leeds in 1996, and worked for political strategist Philip Gould prior to undertaking an MSc (1999) and DPhil (2004) at Nuffield College, Oxford. She worked in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London from 2003 to 2012. She joined the University of Birmingham in 2012 as a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Management.

Catherine’s research focuses on reform of public services, with particular emphasis on the introduction of consumerist models of service delivery. She is interested in the relative role of quasi-markets and consumer-centred models of decision-making compared to those based on notions of citizenship and publicness. Taking an interpretive approach to policy analysis, she has examined the different ‘narratives of consumerism' contained within recent welfare reforms in the UK , drawing on content analysis of government documents and interviews with policy makers, service users and staff.

Her most recent work has focused on the personalisation of public services, with a particular interest in social care services, examining the relationship between the meta-narrative of personalisation and the frontline practice of service redesign. She is also interested in individualised budgets within public services, and the dynamics through which they reshape service provision. She is also exploring how policy ideas and mechanisms spread across different service sectors, using theories of policy transfer and translation.

Catherine also has an interest in public service workforce change, exploring how the roles, skills and values of public service workers are changing. Her research on the 21st Century Public Servant has been widely used within training for the public service workforce. 

Catherine would welcome PhD students interested in aspects of the following: 

• Social care systems
• Personalisation and coproduction in social care
• Public service reform, focused on the UK, or putting the UK in comparative perspective. 

Catherine is involved in the following research:

• The Twenty-first Century Public Servant
• The Sustainable Care Research Programme (2017 - 2021)
• Shaping Care Markets (2016-2019)
• The Twenty-first Century Public Servant (2013)

Previous projects (since joining University of Birmingham)

• Does Smaller Mean Better? Evaluating micro-enterprises in adult social care (2013)
• AHRC Connected Communities Policy Review – ‘Connecting research with communities: redefining service delivery’ (2012-13)
• Social Care Institute for Excellence: commissioned to undertake an evidence review and prepare evidence tables for a Research Briefing on co-production in adult social care (2013)
• Care Watch: Evaluating lay inspectors for home care (2012)