Short Abstract

Evidence utilisation is contingent upon first establishing a shared, credible and inclusive evaluation culture among relevant stakeholders. Using a current case study, we detail strategies for aligning evaluation cultures across commissioners, suppliers, industry and the lived experience community.

Description

This session presents a case study on strengthening and aligning evaluation cultures amid high-stakes, politically-sensitive legislative reform, through an evaluation of policy measures implemented as part of the Gambling Act Review. We address the central conference theme, "Bridging the Gap: Evaluation to Action", by arguing that robust evidence utilisation is contingent upon first establishing a shared, credible and inclusive evaluation culture among all relevant stakeholders.

We first detail the journey of joint commissioning across the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Gambling Commission (GC). The evaluation's initial challenge was bridging the gap between these two separate but closely linked governmental bodies with differing mandates, expectations and processes.

Successful delivery of the evaluation then hinged on a deliberate strategy to set and manage evaluation cultures and expectations across multiple, often divergent, organisational functions and levels of seniority within government and beyond. We proactively fostered a shared evaluation culture across:

- Joint government commissioners: Resolving inherent differences between a policy-making department (DCMS) and a regulatory body (GC).

- External partner alignment: Ensuring the independent, external evaluation supplier’s process and deliverables aligned with varying policy and governance needs.

- External stakeholders: Meaningfully integrating the perspectives of key stakeholders, including a diverse gambling industry and individuals who gamble and those with lived experience of gambling harm.

A critical challenge for the evaluation was then engaging external stakeholders, who had limited prior exposure to the objectives, processes and outputs of a formal, government-commissioned evaluation. Our approach was designed not just to achieve a robust and well-rounded assessment of the policy measures being implemented, but also to pre-emptively build confidence, credibility and legitimacy in the evidence being produced by the evaluation across all of these stakeholder groups. This was to ensure the evidence was welcomed and seen as valuable by stakeholders.

Through detailing the mechanisms used to meaningfully engage, align and motivate all stakeholder groups, the session will share key lessons on:

- Strategies for achieving cultural alignment between government commissioners, external evaluation suppliers and sectoral stakeholders.

- Methods for incorporating industry and lived experience perspectives to ensure evaluative impartiality and utility.

- The impact of this inclusive approach on setting and meeting evaluation expectations, which is a prerequisite for translating evidence into impactful policy reform.

Overall, we argue that investing in a collaborative, multi-stakeholder evaluation culture is the essential first step to successfully navigating high-stakes, politically sensitive policy change.