Nesta’s fairer start team is currently developing and trialing ‘test and learn clinics’ for local authorities. This is a new support offer which guides local teams through a structured process to address key challenges, from discovering root causes and identifying evidence-informed solutions, to learning through experimentation. 

Through our work with local authorities we know innovative work is taking place all across the UK, but what’s tried and tested in one place rarely spreads to another. It’s also challenging for any one local authority to bring research evidence alongside knowledge of local context to identify which solutions will work in their area. Our test and learn clinics aim to help take promising practice generated in one place to scale in many more places, and put new evidence into practice while tailoring to local contexts.

Nesta’s test and learn clinics are deliberately aligned with the Department for Education’s expectation that local authorities should use evidence, community insight and iterative testing to build a culture of learning, experimentation and continuous improvement. As local authorities transition from writing their Best Start in Life local plans to active delivery, our clinics provide an opportunity for this continuous testing approach.

Our clinics offer a collaborative and supportive space for open discussion, and equip local teams with the tools and skills that they need to diagnose the problems that limit successful implementation of their Best Start in Life plans, explore evidence-informed solutions, and test these solutions in a manageable, iterative way. We’re starting with a focus on improving engagement with evidence-based parenting programmes, which we know is a common challenge for local authorities. Successful engagement with families is essential if the investment in parenting programmes is to translate into improved outcomes for children. In future, we plan to test the approach with other challenges, such as using data for decision-making or integration between family hubs and early education and childcare settings.

The clinics draw on Nesta’s parent engagement playbook, which provides local authorities with practical, tested approaches to engage parents more effectively. This evidence-informed playbook acts as the basis for identifying local barriers and potential solutions across the parent journey of engagement, from first hearing about a programme, to signing up and continuing to attend.

Our work on A Fairer Start Local and the Cabinet Office Test, Learn and Grow programme has shown that intensive hands-on partnership can make a significant impact in a small number of places. With our test and learn clinics, we’re exploring how Nesta can support local colleagues in test and learn work, and whether this can be more useful for local authorities than providing self-serve tools - while giving us the potential to reach more places than an intensive hands-on programme would allow.

We have designed a structured programme that supports partners through three clinics, with support from Nesta’s early years experts, designers and behavioural scientists. Between each clinic, local authority teams complete pre-work to gather insights and adapt solutions for their local context.

• Clinic one: Centres on developing a shared understanding of the parent journey, and where parents drop out along the Parent Engagement Lifecycle (see image below). 
• Clinic two: Uses Nesta’s parent engagement playbook to identify barriers and choose evidence-informed tactics that could address these drop-out moments. 
• Clinic three: Will refine a manageable experiment to test whether the tactic works in place.

We have successfully enrolled the first cohort of three local authorities into the programme and delivered clinic one. The pioneering local authorities who’ve joined this first cohort are Blackpool, Telford & Wrekin, and Trafford. Early feedback suggests that local teams particularly value the collaborative and supportive nature of the sessions, and the opportunity to brainstorm ideas and have open discussion.

Over the coming weeks we will deliver clinics two and three, and support each partner as they run a small experiment and adapt their approach based on what they learn. 

Each of the clinics is held with a single local authority and the Nesta team, and we are incorporating opportunities for peer-learning through a joined kick-off and learning sessions across the programme.

Our early work has shown that there is significant interest from local authority teams in using test and learn methods and in improving engagement in programmes for parents. We plan to refine our test and learn clinic model, and if it continues to be an effective way to support local authority partners we will expand the offer with a further cohort in autumn/winter 2026.

We’re happy to share our learning as we develop this programme so please do get in touch if you’re interested in finding out more about our methods, or being involved in a future cohort.

This project sits alongside our wider Best Start in Life support offer. We’re continuing to develop new ways to help local authorities in maximising the opportunity that Best Start in Life brings and supporting more children to reach a good level of development by 2028, giving more children the opportunity to develop to their full potential in the early years. In this clinic model, we are also generating vital insights into how local government can scale innovation and how organisations that aim to support this work, such as Nesta, can be most effective.

Umesh Pandya, Cynthia Voza Lusilu, Ghazal Moenie