What Works?

Feb 2015

• Why ‘What Works’ matters & what it’s all about• Do you know what works?• What we mean by ‘good evidence’ of what works• Busting some trialling myths• Take-home tools• DFID’s perspective …

Why knowing ‘What Works’ matters

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Our vision and approach

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When national and local decision-makers are designing, commissioning or delivering public services:

• Either they will have high quality evidence which suggests their chosen approach will work;

• Or they will use high quality methods to test whether it does work

So that more public spending is directed towards policies and programmes that are known to be cost-effective at achieving outcomes

We are working to achieve this by:•Creating and supporting independent What Works institutions•Leading behaviour change programme across Government through:

• Increasing incentives• Building capability • Launching new services to address barriers

The network of ‘What Works’ Centres

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“The What Works Network will bring a real step-change to our evidence generating capabilities” Danny Alexander Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Do you know ‘What Works’?

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Snapshot from EEF’s Toolkit

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Part of an international movement …

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“The federal government has put 11 large social programs, costing more than $10 billion a year, through rigorous trials. Ten showed “weak or no positive effects.”

“Cell Mates”

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Imagine a US rehabilitation programme where the offender has daily cell phone contact with a mentor to provide expert advice on employment and housing after being released from prison. You’re imagining ‘Cell Mates’ (© Danielle Mason 2015)

Evidence:

Busting some trial myths …

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Policy trials can:

•Be cheap•Be quick •Be pragmatic•Be built around existing policy design

“How do you know if what you’re spending money on is really effective? Often as policymakers we don’t know what will work, but we can do something about this by designing our policies and practice to test, learn and adapt everything we do.”

Take-home tools

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Be early adopters of the Cross-Government Trial Advice Panel •Top 10 trialling experts from Government & 20 external experts •Free-to-use service for all civil servants, launching in June•trialadvicepanel@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Use the evidence and findings from the What Works Centres:

Further reading•‘What Works? Evidence for decision makers’ •‘Test, Learn Adapt‘Test, Learn Adapt’•Follow us on twitter @whatworksUK