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

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of had an impact. So we used a case study approach on work that we thoughtwas particularly good or of particular attention.3.3 Factors Facilitating and Inhibiting the Use of Evaluation FindingsA number of local evaluators pointed to factors that had facilitated them effectivelyinfluencing partnerships’ work. For example, an evaluation report of a Wave OneChildren’s Fund partnership defines a number of measures that are seen as enablingthe partnership to respond to evaluation findings:• information provided should be relevant and useful;• evaluation outputs are delivered at appropriate and relevant times in apartnership’s development;• results are made widely available to a range of stakeholders and presented inappropriate, accessible formats;• recommendations should be realistic in terms of the ability of the partnershipto respond.Another evaluator stressed the importance of engendering a relationship with thepartnership in which the partnership board and programme team recognised thevalue of evaluation and were open to both positive and more critical feedback:I would say that the management team were very open to our approach toevaluation which is to identify the positives and to be honest about what couldbe done better… one of the things that I think made the delivery of theevaluation effective for us was that we shared the same values as theprogrammeProblems using evaluation in a context of changeMany local evaluation reports and evaluators interviewed, however, emphasised anumber of factors that had inhibited their ability to effectively influence partnerships’decision making. These stem from the climate of ongoing change nationally andwithin local authority areas, meaning that, in practice, local evaluation of theChildren’s Fund has tended to be politically/tactically driven (drawing on Young’s2002 framework).The Children’s Fund initiative presents a number of challenges in seeking to applylocal evaluation findings to decision making and practice. The rapidly changingnational context means that changes in partnerships’ directions are often politicallyChapter 3 41
motivated rather that based on local evaluation. The introduction of the CentralGovernment stipulation in 2002 that 25% of programmes’ budgets are allocated tocrime prevention activities (CYPU and the Youth Justice Board, 2002), for example,created significant tensions between Central Government priorities and the abilitiesof partnerships to determine their own programmes (Morris & Spicer 2003; Mason, etal., 2005).Partnerships also experience considerable change locally as mainstream health andsocial care agencies embrace a number of alternative and sometimes divergingagendas. Reflecting this context, as the ongoing work of the National Evaluationsuggests, Children’s Fund partnerships have sometimes struggled to establish theiragendas (for example, NECF, 2004b & c). Indeed, a small number of local Children’sFund evaluators indicated that evaluation was to an extent being driven by shiftingmainstreaming agendas in which partnerships are under pressure to use evaluationto both demonstrate what Children’s Fund projects are achieving to mainstreamagencies and to demonstrate the effectiveness of new practices promoted by theinitiative. The implications of this were described by a Wave One local evaluator:… they had their own agenda and that was to do with the migration intochildren’s trust and the emergence of integrated services; I just saw thatagenda kind of looming large… I think by the end of my time of evaluation withthe Children’s Fund I had a sense that the Children’s Fund were really comingup against that limit… things becoming much more top down and much lessbottom up. It was almost as though the Children’s Fund had done its job; it hadcreated some good and interesting work… and some projects were being kindof cherry picked for mainstreaming; the others were simply being let go to thewall.Some evaluators indicated that they experienced difficulties controlling howevaluation outputs would be disseminated, which groups would receive themessages, and how outputs would be used. The evaluator of a Wave Onepartnership highlighted the ways the messages contained within evaluation outputshad to be carefully poised in terms of reporting on negative aspects of partnerships’work; indeed, senior figures within the partnership had sought to exercise controlover the distribution of evaluation material:… it’s a little bit sad that it’s so politically driven now, and it is, and reports havebeen written very, very sensitively. I don’t know whether you noticed that, butthey have been written very sensitively. And we have been a bit pressuredabout where the reports go and… well I haven’t but powers above have, wherethey go, and if they’re in the public domain.42Chapter 3
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RESEARCHLocal Evaluation ofChildren
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When citing this report please show
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ContentsExecutive SummaryIIntroduct
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Page 10 and 11: 10. Local evaluators highlighted th
Page 12 and 13: 20. Some evaluators involved childr
Page 14 and 15: successes of partnerships’ work (
Page 16: 38. Conditions reinforcing effectiv
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Page 21 and 22: engaging with policy makers, practi
Page 23 and 24: starting points and timetables of d
Page 25 and 26: 1. Process evaluation: critical ass
Page 27 and 28: time commitments and pressures amon
Page 29 and 30: tantamount to auditing when origina
Page 31 and 32: to a certain extent, because I was
Page 33 and 34: acknowledge that findings presented
Page 35 and 36: methods that were seen as being app
Page 38 and 39: Chapter 2: Methods Adopted by Child
Page 40 and 41: place. In one Wave One evaluation t
Page 42 and 43: provided by projects weakened the a
Page 44 and 45: confidently attribute any trends in
Page 46 and 47: A Wave Two evaluation report descri
Page 48 and 49: • Recruitment of the researcher:
Page 50 and 51: drawn on by evaluators include semi
Page 52 and 53: Chapter 3: How Local Evaluation Sup
Page 54 and 55: participation and work towards the
Page 56 and 57: highlighted in Table 1). These incl
Page 60 and 61: Similarly an evaluator of a Wave Tw
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Page 71 and 72: for staff, typically dedicated part
Page 73 and 74: Where partnership working was descr
Page 75 and 76: strategic changes in children’s s
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Page 79 and 80: The importance of providing finding
Page 81 and 82: National Evaluation of the Children
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