Fairer Futures Partnership Programme: evaluation strategy

Monitoring framework and indicators

A set of indicators will be developed for building evidence against the Theory of Change pathways and outcomes as part of the national evaluation. This will set out how the key outcomes in the Theory of Change can be defined and measured and how causal pathways can be evidenced.

This work will be based on the following principles:

• it will align with work already underway in Scottish Government to define a set of core outcomes and indicators for whole family support, so as not to increase the reporting burden on local partnerships;
• it will be developed collaboratively and be sensitive to differences across local partnerships, aiming to support local flexibility in what is measured and reported, while ensuring national coherence and comparability so that partners have a clearer understanding of their impacts;
• it will aim for an appropriate mix of process and outcome measures, intermediate and longer-term outcomes and individual/family and system-level outcomes to ensure that a range of changes can be captured;
• it will be developed and iterated over time as the programme evolves and as data quality improves.

This work will also identify and set out a range of data sources and methods that could be used for evidencing outcomes, which are likely to include national published datasets, locally- and nationally-held administrative data, and locally collected monitoring and evaluation data, including qualitative data.