Strategic commercial interventions: evaluation guidance

4. Types of evaluation

Two main types of evaluation should be undertaken for strategic commercial interventions: outcome evaluation and process evaluation.

• Outcome evaluation: this provides an assessment of whether the intervention worked as expected – to what extent the expected outcomes were realised and at what cost. More information is provided in section 6.
• Process evaluation: this provides an assessment of how well the intervention has been implemented and provides learning points to both improve the current intervention and to inform the implementation of future strategic commercial interventions.

In addition to the full evaluation detailed above which will typically be undertaken once in the life cycle of an intervention, it is expected that more regular ‘stocktakes’ are carried out by policy teams. The stocktake reviews will assist in providing regular high level updates on whether the intervention is working as expected, whether any adjustments are necessary and whether there are any changes in the financial or other risk exposure of the investment.

Stocktakes should provide an ongoing assessment of:

• the actual costs of the intervention relative to forecasts;
• any changes in the risk associated with the intervention;
• any changes to the external constraints the intervention is working within;
• whether the intervention is working as intended;
• whether any changes are required;
• what the emerging outcomes and impacts are; and
• whether there are any unintended consequences of the intervention.