Guidance on using the Evaluation Registry

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GUIDANCE ON USING THE EVALUATION REGISTRY

1 - Registering Government evaluations

1.1. All planned, live, and completed Government evaluations from 1st April 2024 onwards must be registered on the Government Evaluation Registry.

1.2. This applies to planned evaluations, live evaluations, and evaluation reports produced by all Central Government Departments.* It also includes all evaluations of Government Major Projects, including where these are delivered and/or evaluated by external organisations.

1.3. In this guidance, the word “intervention” is used to apply to any policy, project or programme delivered by a Government Department.

1.4. To be categorised as an evaluation, the research should involve the application of one or more evaluation methods as defined in the Magenta Book. These include impact, process and value-for-money evaluations. These might be evaluations of major projects, evidence syntheses, pilot studies, or other types of evaluation research. If you are not sure whether a piece of research classifies as an evaluation, please get in touch with the Evaluation Task Force (etf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk).

1.5. A Registry entry for a new planned evaluation should be created once the first version of the evaluation plan has been signed off for publication through the relevant internal governance process. This should happen no later than the first round of data collection. Entries should be updated as required to reflect future versions or changes to the evaluation plan.

1.6. One entry should be created per evaluation. If an evaluation contains multiple aspects, for example, a cost benefit analysis and a randomised control trial, these should both be included in a single entry. Users can add links to multiple published reports in a single entry, and should not create multiple entries per evaluation report.

1.7. Planned evaluations should be uploaded once the first version of the evaluation plan has been signed off for publication through the relevant internal governance process. This should happen no later than the first round of data collection. Entries should be updated as required to reflect future versions or changes to the evaluation plan.

1.8. The mandatory requirement does not apply to evaluations from Devolved Administrations, Arms Length Bodies, Agencies or Public Bodies (with the exception of cases where Government Major Projects are being delivered and/or evaluated by external organisations), but these bodies have access to and are encouraged to make use of the Registry.

1.9. Central evaluation teams or leads within Departments are responsible for overseeing the Department’s use of the Registry, with Departmental Directors of Analysis (DDANs) holding ultimate responsibility for its use. All new site entries, and updates to existing site entries, must be approved on the site by a user from the Department with publisher permission (these roles are managed by central evaluation teams or leads). Metrics reflecting Departmental uptake of the site will be reported to DDANs by the Evaluation Task Force on a regular basis.

1.10. The Evaluation Task Force will monitor uptake and usage of the Evaluation Registry on an ongoing basis. In cases where Departments which have been mandated to use the Registry fail to register evaluation plans and reports on the site, the Evaluation Task Force will follow up with the Department’s central evaluation team/lead in the first instance.

1.11. In the case of continued failure to comply, the issue will be escalated to the Office for Statistical Regulation under the existing terms of the Code of Practice for Statistics and GSR Publication Protocol in addition to HM Treasury spending teams.

1.12. For more information on the use of the Registry, please see the Evaluation Registry frequently asked questions page.

2 - Publishing Government evaluations

2.1. All planned evaluations and the findings of evaluations should be published and made available to the public by default, as per the Government Social Research publication protocol. This is in addition to the requirement to register evaluations on the Evaluation Registry.

2.2. If the evaluation plan or report is exempt from reporting under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, it does not have to be published or registered. Evaluation documents can be exempted from reporting under the following 7 sections of the FOI Act:

Section 22 - Information intended for future publication
Section 24 - National Security
Section 26 - Defence
Section 27 - International relations
Section 31 (1) - Law enforcement
Section 35 - Formulation of government policy
Section 43 - Commercial interests

2.3. Planned, ongoing or completed evaluations relating to Government policies, projects, or programmes which are classified above “OFFICIAL” classification, i.e. classified “OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE”, “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET”, should not be entered on the Registry.

2.4. In some cases, aspects of an intervention will be subject to restrictions as noted in Section 2.3, rather than the entire intervention. In these circumstances, restrictions apply to the specific part of the intervention classified as “OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE”, “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET” (or otherwise under embargo, or exempt under the FOI Act) rather than the intervention as a whole. Decisions about classification or embargo of evaluation documents must be made by Departments internally.

2.5. In the case of Major Projects classified above “OFFICIAL”, a Registry entry should be created including the minimum required fields on the site unless the name of the Major Project is not publicly available, the specific content required to populate those fields is classified above “OFFICIAL”, and/or the specific content required to populate those fields is exempt from reporting under the FOI Act.

2.6. If the policy, project or programme in question is currently under embargo it should not be registered until the end of the embargo period.

2.7. If you are not sure whether your evaluation meets these criteria, please get in touch with the Evaluation Task Force (etf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk).

2.8. For more information, see the Information Commissioner’s Office Freedom of Information guidance and the FOI Act.

3 - Evaluation of Government activity

3.1. All policies, programmes and projects should be subject to proportionate evaluation. The Green Book states that all proposals for funding should include a proportionate budget, and a management plan, for monitoring and evaluation.

3.2. An evaluation is a systematic assessment of the design, implementation and outcomes of an intervention. It involves understanding how an intervention is being, or has been, implemented and what effects it has, for whom and why. It identifies what can be improved and estimates its overall impacts and cost-effectiveness.

3.3. Evaluation involves the application of one or more impact, process, and/or value for money evaluation methods as defined in the Magenta Book.

3.4. It is compulsory for Government funded interventions to be evaluated in cases where the intervention meets one or more of the following criteria:

The intervention is part of the Government Major Projects Portfolio
HM Treasury has requested an evaluation of the intervention is conducted.

3.5. Not all interventions will require the same level of scrutiny or have the same learning needs. In the case of a low-risk, well-evidenced and low priority intervention, a light-touch monitoring and evaluation exercise to ensure it has been delivered as intended and achieved the predicted outcomes is likely to be all that is necessary. On the other hand, a high risk, high-status policy breaking new ground is likely to require a large-scale evaluation.

3.6. Criteria for ‘priority’ interventions that require substantial evaluations include the following, as set out in the Magenta Book (see P16-17):

High profile policies;
High levels of uncertainty and/or risk (including possible negative consequences);
High cost (if evaluating a pilot, the full cost of rolling out the policy should be considered);
High learning potential (low priority interventions on other criteria can have a high potential for filling strategically important evidence gap).

*Central Government Departments in this context refers to all Ministerial Departments, HM Revenue and Customs, and the UK Statistics Authority (including the Office for National Statistics, the Government Analysis Function, and the Office for Statistical Regulation).

Guidance on using the Evaluation Registry