BIS told to embed evaluation in policy design

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills needs to clarify its policy objectives and improve evaluation if it is to reduce the number of ineffective policy interventions, a report has said.

Recommendations for Improving Evaluation in BIS, written by the department’s expert peer review group on evaluation and published on 27 January, suggests a number of ways to improve the department’s development of policies.

By 2020, BIS should be aiming to fully evaluate the performance of all its policies, including those adopted by its partnering bodies. In order to do so, the report says that officials need to evaluate the potential impact of policies during their development. They should make sure to design interventions in a way that allows them to be tested before they are rolled out.