Strategic commercial interventions: evaluation guidance

8. Dissemination of findings

The value of an evaluation comes through its use and influence for future decision making. Evaluation findings must therefore be accessible and usable by the relevant decision-makers at the right time. Likewise, scrutiny bodies and the wider public should be able to access, understand and use the findings to assess what has been achieved with public resources.^[4] In this way, there are two broad user groups for evaluations:

• Direct: those designing and implementing an intervention use the findings to improve the intervention’s design or implementation and to maximise the chance of achieving the intended outcomes. Those scrutinising government performance use evaluation findings to assess the performance and outcomes of policies.
• Indirect: those who use the findings to answer other, related questions, design future policies in the same or similar areas, or capture learning about the use of public funds.

Plans for how the evaluation findings will be disseminated should be considered at the start of the evaluation planning stage. Consideration should be given to which groups might use the evaluation, what information they need, when that information might be needed and for what purpose and which communication channels might be most appropriate.

In relation to SG’s Strategic Commercial Assets, to ensure transparency the intention should be for the findings to be publishable and in a form suitable to share with interested parties such as the Public Audit Committee, Audit Scotland etc.