Guidance

Policy that Works conference

The Evaluation Task Force led the virtual Policy that Works conference between Monday, 28 February and Thursday, 3 March 2022.

• From: Evaluation Task Force
• Published: 10 June 2022
• Last updated: 4 July 2022 — See all updates

Documents

Policy that Works Conference Digital Poster

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Details

Policy that Works: Why Evaluation is Important

The conference aimed to galvanise colleagues across government to strive for high-quality evaluation to support the best possible outcomes for policies.

The conference featured presentations, panel events and workshops designed to support good quality policy evaluation and evidence use across government.

A mixture of political officials, civil servants and external experts from What Works Centres, research organisations and academia featured across the sessions. Speakers included Sir Patrick Vallance, Professor Chris Whitty, The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, the Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, The Rt Hon Simon Clarke MP and Professor David Halpern (What Works National Adviser).

The full agenda is available here.

• Day 1 focused on evaluation in government, including practical sessions on different evaluation approaches and access to data to support evaluation.
• Day 2 focused on cross-government policy priorities and how we can better evaluate these complex areas. Priority areas included: Levelling Up; Net Zero; Crime and Justice; Health and Social Care; Education, Skills and Jobs. Other sessions included an international panel of evaluation experts examining lessons learned on evidence-based policymaking, and insights from HMT on government spending and evaluation.
• Day 3 focused on innovation and evaluation in government. Sessions included lessons learned from DfT and BEIS amongst others and insight on international approaches to evaluating innovations.
• Day 4 showcased the range of evaluation support available to departments, including services focused on linked administrative data. Other sessions showcased the wider work of the What Works Network and why transparency is important for evaluation.

Please visit your departmental intranet for the available recorded sessions. A digital copy of the sketchnotes created for the main sessions of each day can be found here. Please see the attachment for a poster summarising the conference.

A video of key speakers is now available on the Cabinet Office YouTube Channel and this page, featuring the Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Sir Patrick Vallance and more. Speech transcripts are also available for the Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, the Rt Hon Simon Clarke MP and Sir Patrick Vallance.

If you have any questions about the Policy that Works conference, or issues accessing the content here, please email etf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

Published 10 June 2022
Last updated 4 July 2022 + show all updates

1. 4 July 2022

   We have updated the page with links to the the speech transcripts for the Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, the Rt Hon Simon Clarke MP and Sir Patrick Vallance.

2. 24 June 2022

   The Policy that Works conference video (Title: Policy that Works: Why Evaluation is Important) has now been published on the Cabinet Office Youtube Channel and made available on this page.

3. 10 June 2022

   First published.