Guidance on using the Evaluation Registry

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.Departments [1]. It also includes all evaluations of Government Major Projects, including where these are delivered and/or evaluated by external organisations.

1.3. 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).

1.4. 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.

1.5. The mandatory requirement does not apply to evaluations from Devolved Administrations, Arms Length Bodies, Agencies or Public Bodies,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. 

1.6. 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. Metrics reflecting Departmental uptake of the site will be reported to DDANs by the Evaluation Task Force on a regular basis.

1.7. The Evaluation Task Force will be monitoring 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.

1.8. 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.

1.9. 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 evaluation research and the findings of evaluations should be published and made available to the public by default, as per the Government Social Research publication protocol. 

2.2. This is subject to exemption as per the terms of the Government Social Research publication protocol, which states that departments are not expected to publish evaluation research on the rare occasions when publication would threaten national security, destabilise the economy, or would otherwise not be in the public interest. This might apply in the case of a classified trade agreement, or military capability programmes, for example. If you are not sure whether your intervention meets these criteria, please get in touch with the Evaluation Task Force (etf@cabinetoffice.gov.uk). 

2.3. Evaluation plans or reports relating to Government policies, projects, or programmes which are classified above “OFFICIAL” classification, i.e. classified “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET”, should not be uploaded to the Registry. 

2.4. Similarly, if the intervention in question is currently under embargo, it should not be uploaded to the Registry until it is no longer under embargo.

2.5. If the evaluation in question does not meet the terms for exemption outlined above, it must be registered and findings published once available. For more information, see the Information Commissioner’s Office Freedom of Information guidance.

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
• The intervention is a grant funded either directly by departments, or via their ALBs
• 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).

[1] Central Government Departments in this context includes 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).