aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Co-authors and moderators: Laurence Denholm (NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet), Anthea McClintock (NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet)

Panelists: Lyn Alderman (The Evaluators’ Collective), Geoff Gallop AC  (Emeritus Professor ANZSOG and Director, Graduate School of Government, University of Sydney, former Premier of Western Australia), Nicholas Gruen  (Lateral Economics), William Murphy (NSW Department of Customer Service), Simon Smith (Nous Group), Jonathan Wheaton (NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment)

Note: Audience participation (questions to panel and audience polling) by mobile phone, using sli.do. Please download the sli.do app from your app store or use the sli.do website.

Despite steady expansion in the scope and intensity of evaluation practice in government agencies throughout the OECD, criticism of evaluation continues amongst policy professionals and public administrators on the basis of cost and lack of timeliness in results. Emerging policy implementation practices such as "deliverology", which address alleged shortcomings in evaluation practice, now compete for the attention of policy and program managers, some who see evaluation as nothing more than a mandated compliance activity. Although evidence from evaluation can contribute to accountability and communications in established programs, the paramount value lies in application of evaluation results for long-term improvement of future policies and programs through evidence-based decision support. Improving the decision support value of evaluation will however require better tailoring of evaluation outputs to decision-makers' needs, addressing tensions between timeliness, objectivity and cost of results, and broadening the application of evaluation results through informed inference. Guided by an expert panel, this session will pursue a participatory approach to consensus on factors, real or perceived, that significantly constrain the adoption and hence the full potential of evaluation as a decision support tool. Participants and panel will propose and explore opportunities for mitigation of those constraints that are real and rebuttal of those that are not. It is expected that the ground between evaluation and "deliverology" will be especially fertile. Participation will provide practicing evaluators and those commissioning evaluation services with an opportunity to contribute to ongoing debate about the value of evaluation as a policy decision support tool. Importantly, participation will enable those interested in advocating for evaluation with a toolkit to rebut incorrect criticism and, as far as practicable, facilitate effective responses to valid criticism from those who are often the end-users of evaluation outputs. The session will guide more effective and more valuable application, design and reporting of evaluation.