Evidence-based policy

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Comment by Eleanor Stringer on April 22, 2009 at 12:10pm

Yesterday was interesting, thanks. Nice controversial piece that we've come across from the Policy Exchange: it thinks that the government put all its resources into Every Child a Reader (a charity that gives children extra reading tuition) without waiting for good evidence, because it had already put too much political capital into it: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/pdfs/Every_Child_a_Reader.pdf

NB that a) it is written by a group who have their own reading programme and b) NPC does not support this paper, just thinks it's interesting. (We've recommended ECAR's approach).

Comment by Nicola Gilbert on April 17, 2009 at 5:24pm

Hi everyone,
Ahead of our seminar on Tuesday 21 April, please post up or email over any questions you have around evidence-based approaches for our speakers: John Young from the ODI, Rachel Burr from Citizens Advice, and Belinda Pratten and Veronique Jochum from the NCVO research and policy teams.
Look forward to seeing some of you there on the day!

Comment by Compact Voice National Network on April 17, 2009 at 2:31pm

In a fascinated article a few years ago, David Boyle argues that the real problem is how to interpret numbers. No matter how many screeds of figures are available, they will not automatically tell you what causes what: that requires common sense, good judgement and intuition – none of which are encouraged by the neo-utilitarian ‘evidence-based’ policy. What is the outcome measure for the NHS for example? The number of patients successfully treated? Or is it the health of the population? The statistics for those would be diametrically different. As James Anyon said: “Use figures as little as you can. Think and act upon facts, truths and principles and regard figures only as things to express these.”

Read full article at http://www.arvac.org.uk/docs/info_bull99d.html

Comment by Kate Damiral on April 17, 2009 at 12:50pm

If you want to use evidence of what works from within your own organisation, NCVO's Strategy and Impact website www.strategy-impact.org.uk provides an introduction to monitoring and evaluating impact, which you might find handy.

Comment by John Young on April 9, 2009 at 10:07am

Hello again. Just to let you know about an event we're organising at the ODI on the 29th April which might also be of interest: "Knowledge to Policy: Making the most of development research". Fred Carden from the international development research centre in CAnada, and Annette Boaz from Kings College London will be speaking. You can find out more and sign up here.

Comment by Nicola Gilbert on April 8, 2009 at 3:47pm

Hi all,
As there have been a few queries around the tools used by Citizens Advice to collect and analyse evidence, I just wanted to flag up our next Policy Forum seminar, taking place on Tuesday 21 April, where a speaker from Citizens Advice will be talking through their approach to evidence-based policy. Visit www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/events/latest/?id=13166 for the full seminar programme and to book your place or just give me a call on 020 7520 2465.

Comment by John Young on March 18, 2009 at 9:57am

This looks like a really interesting group. We, in the Overseas Development Institute have been working to promote better use of research-based evidence in international development policy and practice for the last 5 years. As a think tank ourselves a major emphasis has been on how think tanks and other civil society organisations with a similar function can do it better. You can find out more about what we do and download our research reports and toolkits etc from our website. We're also interested to learn from and share experiences with others working on evidence-based policy in the UK and have hosted a couple of workshops bringing together people working on this topic in the UK and internationally under the title "Impact and Insight". You can find them here.

Comment by Rachael Stokes on March 9, 2009 at 3:14pm

Hi Katrina, we are planning to run a seminar on using evidence on 21 April and I am looking at identifying good case studies to present at the seminar and to include in a practical guide. I will post a discussion about this shortly but in the meantime, would you be able to recommend anyone in particular from CAB to discuss how their tool works and how it might be adapted by other organisations?

Comment by Katrina Festorazzi on March 9, 2009 at 2:45pm

In a nut shell it is an electronic form that each caseworker completes at each bureau in the country. It outlines what the policy issue is, how it could be dealt with on a local basis and what they think could be done on a national basis. This is then sent to Citizens Advice. All client details at this point are anon. Citizens advice use this evidence to affect change. They receive over 70,000 piece of evidence (per year) via this method but also use other forms of evidence gathering. I am working on a simular tool.

Comment by Sarah Cant on March 9, 2009 at 11:48am

Katrina - are you able to share the Citizens Advice tool with us, or outline how it works? Thanks

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