Guidance: Evaluating Policy in Government

This is a guide for civil servants to develop better policies by incorporating evaluation into the policymaking process.

This page collates useful guidance and resources for evaluating policy in government.

It’s aimed at anyone working on policy in government, including:

To ensure that government policies are effectively delivered, it is important to understand if and how a policy works for the public.

Evaluation is key to generating robust evidence on government interventions (which can mean a policy, programme or new service delivery model). Evaluation ensures that government expenditure is spent wisely and, ultimately, provides effective and efficient services for the public. The evidence that evaluations generate can be especially valuable if:

HM Treasury’s new Green Book states that “monitoring and evaluation of all proposals should be […] an integral part of all proposed interventions” (2022, p. 2). If we want to ensure public money is used to maximum effect, we need to test whether interventions are working, or whether adaptations to interventions could deliver improvements.

To kickstart an evaluation for any intervention, you can ask yourself or your colleagues the following questions. This will help make sure your intervention is set up for effective evaluation.

1. What does success or failure look like?

Before you start thinking about evaluation methods, you should consider what your intervention is aiming to achieve, and what outcomes you want to see. You also need to consider what context your intervention will be operating in.