Evaluating the evaluators: What have we learned from 'neutral assessments' of the Canadian federal evaluation function?

Most Canadian federal government departments and agencies are required to conduct a 'neutral assessment' of their evaluation function every five years. Such assessments should focus on the capacity of the evaluation units to produce high-quality evaluation reports which serve the needs of organizational decision-makers. Our study sought to analyze neutral assessment reports produced over a ten-year period. Overall, our review suggests that the neutral assessments consistently conform with central-agency requirements as well as indicate evolving evaluation capacity and utilization. We provide recommendations for improving the function and its impact. La plupart des ministeres et organismes du gouvernement federal canadien sont tenus d'effectuer un << examen neutre >> de leur fonction d'evaluation tous les cinq ans. De tels examens devraient etre axes sur la capacite des directions d'evaluation a produire des rapports d'evaluation de haute qualite qui repondent aux besoins des decideurs organisationnels. Le but de notre etude etait d'analyser des rapports d'examens neutres effectues sur une duree de dix ans. Dans l'ensemble, notre analyse indique que les examens neutres sont invariablement conformes aux exigences des organismes centraux et indique aussi un progres au niveau de la capacite et de l'utilisation de l'evaluation. Nous proposons des recommandations pour ameliorer la fonction et ses resultats.
Introduction In the Canadian federal government, the program evaluation function is responsible for the development and implementation of applied social research studies to assess the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of [...]