Local Evaluation of Children's Services Learning from the Children's ...

conducted rigorously in terms of systematic, transparent data collection, analysis andinterpretation; and make credible claims that are well founded, plausible and basedon data gathered (Spencer, et al., 2004).A number of local evaluators clearly explicate the principles guiding the conduct oftheir evaluations in their reports. Other evaluation reports allude to their guidingprinciples and standards in the descriptions of their approaches and methodologies.The commonly stated principles are described below although it should be noted thatthere are considerable variations between different local evaluations reflecting theirparticular sets of aims.Usefulness and relevanceMany local evaluators placed significant emphasis on providing material that wouldbe useful and relevant to Children’s Fund programmes. The need is recognised forregular and frequent reporting from local evaluators to ensure that findings andrecommendations have not been made redundant due to a long time lapse in theirproduction. The importance of being useful is also reflected by the formative,developmental approach to relationships between evaluators and partnerships. Thisis reflected in practices such as providing material to inform programme planning, aswell as producing findings at relevant intervals in a partnership’s development inorder to help stakeholders to reflect on and adapt practices.As suggested above, documentary and interview analysis points to the ways localevaluators have responded to the needs of Children’s Fund programmes. A range ofapproaches to defining the scope and direction were apparent. For some evaluationsthe partnership closely defined the local evaluators’ roles and aspects of its work thatthe evaluator would examine, although most appeared to have some latitude togenerate research designs and employ methods of data gathering and analysis theyfelt were appropriate to address the specific questions and needs of partnerships.Other evaluations appear to have had greater latitude to define the aspects ofpartnerships’ work that they examined. For example, one evaluator of a Wave Twopartnership explained:Well it was a bit of both. The programme manager decided that she wanted asecond evaluation, and she wanted it to be more in-depth. So she gave me theremit in terms of, I want it to cover services and I want to know exactly whatthey’re doing and what they’re not doing. How it was executed was absolutelydown to me… I think although it was a free rein; I think that was an advantageChapter 1 13