The National Audit Office (NAO) believe good evaluation is key to helping government to learn whether its interventions are working and to demonstrate accountability for the use of public money.
Their 2021 report Evaluating Government Spending found that Government has taken steps to strengthen the way it evaluates its activity, but evaluation continues to be variable and inconsistent. Much of its work is either not evaluated robustly or not evaluated at all, which means government has little information in most policy areas on what difference is made by the billions of pounds being spent.
On 15th March 2022, Phil Bradburn (National Audit Office) hosted a CECAN webinar which explored:
- Actions the NAO found that government has taken since their previous report on evaluation in 2013;
- Progress in addressing systemic barriers to good evaluation and good use of evaluation evidence; and
- What further steps the centre of government should take to build on their reforms to date.
If you were unable to join the webinar, you can read further details and watch the session via our Events page. We are also pleased to be able to share a PDF version of the PowerPoint slides.