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Knowledge assets are intangibles that organisations possess and which may have value. Knowledge assets include: “inventions, designs, certain R&D outcomes, data and information, creative outputs such as text, video, graphics, software and source code, know-how and expertise, business processes, services and other intellectual resources as well as the reputation of the organisation itself” (Rose Book, 2024). They are assets in that they have the potential to yield social, economic and/or financial benefits by application beyond the purpose for which they were originally developed.

In 2021, the Mackintosh report set out an implementation strategy to obtain greater value from KAs held by the public sector, as identified in the HM Treasury Balance Sheet Review (2017) and the Getting Smart report (2018). The latter revealed that public sector organisations faced many barriers to effectively manage and exploit their knowledge assets.

The Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) was established as a requirement of HM Treasury in 2022 with a budget of £30m over three years (2022/23 to 2024/25). Its corporate objective is ‘to increase engagement in, and outcomes from, knowledge asset exploitation across the public sector’. GOTT works with central government departments and their public sector bodies to help them identify, protect, develop and exploit their knowledge assets. In doing so, GOTT can be considered a pioneer in that there is no obvious prior model to be followed either in the UK or further afield.

In 2023, GOTT commissioned SQW to undertake an early evaluation of its activities to date.The SQW team was supported by David Secher (University of Cambridge), Elaine Eggington (Wellspring) and Nick Hare (Aleph Insights). The evaluation sought evidence on the effectiveness of the support GOTT has given to its clients and on how it is perceived by public sector stakeholders. The evaluation focused on the design and delivery of GOTT, and the progress made towards realising early outcomes. Clients and stakeholders were approached through semi-structured online interviews or a questionnaire survey, and discussions were held with GOTT staff. Across these, feedback was obtained from nearly 90 individuals.

Our evaluation concluded that GOTT has made good progress against its objectives and strategy so far, and it has the potential to deliver on the expectations set out in the Mackintosh report. The key findings were as follows:

• By end of March 2024, GOTT had supported around 100 organisations engaging with over 900 individuals. These included ministerial departments, non-departmental public bodies and executive agencies.
• GOTT has clear and well-defined management and governance structures and arrangements in place for strategy implementation. These appear to be robust in relation to the objectives of GOTT, although there have been some minor “growing pains” during the start-up and expansion phase (e.g. external recruitment).
• Overall, GOTT’s position within DSIT provides a reasonable balance between its ability to influence policy and bring about cultural change on the one hand and, on the other, the flexibility and speed of decision-making needed to deliver practical support.
• Most of the client feedback suggests that the support received from GOTT so far has been effective. In nearly all cases, the client survey respondents and consultees rated the activities delivered by GOTT highly, with average ratings of at least 8 out of 10 across most activities (rating of 10 being ‘very effective’).
• GOTT has been effective in progressing towards the achievement of early outcomes, encompassing both ‘soft’ benefits (e.g. increased enthusiasm, profile/traction, and knowledge/awareness in relation to knowledge assets) and ‘hard’ benefits (e.g. knowledge assets strategies in place, improved capability/maturity, and progress towards exploitation).
• There was feedback both from clients and stakeholders that GOTT’s activities are starting to change cultural attitudes towards KAs, though it is recognised that this will take longer to achieve.

The evaluation report has now been published and can be accessed here. For further information regarding SQW’s work on the study, please contact Osman Anwar via OAnwar@sqw.co.uk.