Don Nutbeam

These are difficult times to be in government, faced with managing a pandemic guaranteed to cause extraordinary disruption to the social and economic fabric of Australia. Governments have had to act with incomplete information and rapidly evolving science. There is no certainty about the right way to proceed; the community has been anxious and opinion […]

Different groups — frontline workers, auditors, the public — value different aspects of evaluation for different reasons. It’s important to keep these competing values in mind.

The difficulty of embedding public sector program evaluation can’t be underestimated. It requires process changes, cultural adjustment and systemic institutional support. States like NSW that are courageous enough should be supported not scolded.

Better collaboration and impact assessment should help bridge the researcher-policymaker divide. Researchers, once engaged and invested in outcomes, can restore evidence to policymaking.