| Recommendation: 26 | Embed a culture of evaluation and learning from experience to underpin evidence-based policy and delivery | Overall status: Underway |
| Thodey guidance | Status | Delivery on Thodey |
|---|---|---|
| Finance to develop, for Secretaries Board agreement, an APS-wide approach to build evaluation capability and ensure systematic evaluation of programs and policies. | Continuing | Embedding a culture of evaluation requires sustained leadership, institutional changes, and capability building. The Government allocated $10 million over 4 years from 2023–24 (and $2.1 million per year ongoing) to establish a central evaluation function within Treasury to provide leadership and improve evaluation capability across Government, including support to agencies and leading a small number of flagship evaluations each year. The Australian Centre of Evaluation was established in July 2023. This work builds on and complements the existing Commonwealth Evaluation Policy, Toolkit and Community of Practice. |
Finance to establish a central enabling evaluation function to support APS evaluation practices and expertise. | Complete | The Australian Centre of Evaluation was established in July 2023. |
| Agencies to establish in-house evaluation functions and annual plans, and publish evaluations, unless exempt by the Cabinet. | Underway | Several agencies have established in-house evaluation functions in the past 3 years, and most Departments now have one. The Australian Centre of Evaluation will work with Departments to expand this capability more widely. |
Government to amend Cabinet and budget requirements to establish a systematic approach for formal evaluations. | Complete | The BPORs were updated in December 2022 to include a refreshed set of overarching objectives, including a focus on evaluating expenditure to inform and improve the development of new policy proposals. The Cabinet Handbook was also updated to support First Nations perspectives and engagement/consultation as part of the policy lifecycle. |