Julia Atkins
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Senior Research Fellow |
Research Interests and Expertise
- London: communities and place
- Housing and homelessness
- Social and demographic issues
- Housing policy and strategy development
- Research and survey methods
Julia Atkins is a senior research fellow in housing in the department of Applied Social Sciences (DASS) at London Metropolitan University. She is currently assisting in the development of postgraduate courses in spatial planning and setting up a research and consultancy capacity within the Spatial Planning and Housing Studies Centre based in DASS.
Julia has operated at a senior level in local and regional government. As a director of one of the country’s leading social research teams, the London Research Centre (LRC), she managed a programme of policy research work for local and central government and a range of other organisations.
Julia has initiated and coordinated large and complex work programmes, set up processes to collect quantitative and qualitative data, and to analyze and disseminate these data for both policy development and evaluation. She has had responsibility for multi-disciplinary teams and for cross cutting strategy development, special area development, capital investment programmes, and the assessment of social and urban conditions at national, regional and local levels. She also has extensive experience of being commissioned for and of commissioning projects.
London benefited for many years from the ‘building blocks’ of key information and analysis she initiated with her teams in the Greater London Council, and maintained through the London Research Centre (LRC) over 14 years, into the newly created Greater London Authority in the early 2000s. These data and information were used initially for the Mayor’s Housing Commission, ‘Homes for a World City’ and in the development of the Mayor of London’s spatial development strategy, the ‘London Plan’ (2004).
Publications
Reports
Homes and Communities in London, London Housing Strategy, (ed.) 2003, Published by the London Housing Board.
London Housing Statement: Delivering Solutions, (ed.) 2002, Published by the Government Office for London/Housing Corporation.
Homes for a World City: report of the Mayor’s Housing Commission (ed.), 2000, Greater London Authority.
Housing in London: Current issues, pressures and trends, 2000, published by the London Research Centre for Housing Corporation.
Taking stock of what we know: estimates of the housing needs of Black and Minority Ethnic Groups in London, 2000, published by the London Research Centre and Housing Corporation.
Supporting People: a new policy framework for support services, 2000, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR).
Where does public spending go? 1999, Pilot study to analyse the flow of all government public expenditure into local areas, [with LSE and Heriot Watt Universities] commissioned and published by DETR & the Treasury.
Tenants Feedback: A guide to conducting tenants’ satisfaction surveys, 1993, [with SCPR now the National Centre], Department of the Environment (DoE).
Professional activity:
Julia is a member of the Editorial Board of ROOF magazine. She is Vice-Chair of the Brent Private Tenants’ Rights Group and a member of the Social Research Association and the Public Management and Policy Association.
Formerly Julia served for many years on the Government’s Central Local Information Partnership (CLIP) housing statistics group and was invited, by Hilary Armstrong in 1998, to be a member of the Policy Action Team on Better Information.
