Making a difference: a guide to evaluating public participation in central government

Evaluating political participation

By: Warburton D, Wilson R & Rainbow E
Published by: Involve, 2007
Via: Eldis

This document discusses guidelines for evaluating public participation in central government. Although it refers to the UK government, it is useful for all participation evaluations. It focuses on specific ideas for using evaluations to set objectives for engagement, measure achievements, as well as identify lessons and help improve practice. The authors argue that because evaluations are a new element in public engagement, it is important to assess the effectiveness of different approaches, increase accountability and to learn from experience. Main guidelines discussed include:

• in the early stages, it is crucial hat the objectives and ideas can make a difference to the content of policy
• contrary to common perceptions, it is important to start the evaluation process early - it is too late to start thinking about this at the end
• during the evaluation, it is important that it covers the following three questions - has the initiative succeeded, has the process worked and what impact has the process had?
• post-evaluation there is always a need to go beyond simply producing a final report - further dissemination may include presenting findings to the commissioning body of the evaluation, or producing articles on the findings for academic and professional journals, newsletters etc.

(http://www.involve.org.uk/evaluation/Making%20a%20Differece%20-%20A%20guide%20to%20evaluating%20public%20participation%20in%20centralgovernment.pdf)