Scott Bayley Blog

Effective Evaluation Policies in Public Sector Agencies

M&E is not an end in itself. Governments and organizations build monitoring and evaluation systems because they believe that such systems will help them to improve their governance and performance.

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Evaluation Capability Uplift Workshops

On behalf of the Evaluation Centre, Scott delivered evaluation training sessions covering program logic and SMART performance indicators to all departmental staff.

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Evaluation for Accountability or Learning?

Evaluation can be defined as the systematic empirical examination of a program’s design, implementation and impacts with a view to judging a program’s merit, worth and significance. Evaluation reduces uncertainty for stakeholders, aids decision making, and serves a political function. Evaluations are commonly undertaken for the following reasons: policy development; improving the administration/management of a program; demonstrating accountability; and facilitating stakeholder participation in decision making.

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How Leaders can Demonstrate their Support for Evaluation

Senior leaders have many opportunities to demonstrate their support for EVALUATION (using evidence to inform decision making at all stages of the program management cycle to drive continuous improvement):

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Improving the monitoring and evaluation of facilities in the Australian aid program

International development is a highly challenging sector with a range of different approaches used to deliver sustainable impacts for those most in need. Australia has been making use of the ‘facility’ approach to deliver aid since the 1990s. This is particularly the case when the operational environment is highly complex, and a degree of flexibility is required.

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Managing for Development Results - An Organisational Diagnostic Framework

Over the past 30 years governments around the world have been under pressure to demonstrate the efficient and effective use of public resources. Public concern for national debt reduction, declining confidence in political leadership, globalization of the economy, free trade and consequently increased competitiveness in the open market have all been important factors. These global pressures have contributed to the emergence of results-based management (RBM) approaches in the international aid programs of countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom as well as the United States.

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The Challenges of Evaluating Social Services Programs

Typical examples of state government services include: health programs, education programs, employment services, services for people with a disability, programs for indigenous peoples, housing programs, child protection, and mental health services.

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The symptoms and causes of underperforming public programs

Public sector managers are not always aware of the gaps in the initial design and/or implementation arrangements for their programs. Failings and weaknesses often do not reveal themselves until implementation begins. When things are not working as intended program managers then face the need to do something to get performance back on track. But what to do?

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Three Approaches to Measurement in Program Evaluation

In my experience staff working in international development often struggle with devising measures of outcome variables and abstract concepts such capacity or empowerment.

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