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Paper short abstract

The abstract describes how co-creation and evaluative rubrics help evaluators and stakeholders explain Value for Money without depending on economic ratios alone. It demonstrates a practical approach for making VfM assessments more transparent, context-specific and decision-useful.

Paper long abstract

The Magenta Book recommends Social Cost–Benefit Analysis (SCBA) and Social Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (SCEA) as preferred approaches for assessing Value for Money (VfM). A key strength of these economic methods is their ability to clearly communicate complexity. Expressing value as outcomes-per-pound or £8 of benefits for every £1 invested offers a neat and compelling comparison across interventions. However, most evaluators of complex interventions know that SCBA and SCEA alone are rarely the best approaches for evaluating complexity. Despite this, there remains a hesitancy to use qualitative or mixed methods approaches for VfM assessments.

This hesitancy is often less about concerns over the “rigour” of qualitative methods and more about benchmarking and evaluative reasoning – that is, how we judge what “good” performance looks like. Quantitative targets and break-even points appear unambiguous; qualitative evidence, by contrast, is perceived as less “SMART,” more open to interpretation and therefore easier to game.

The Value for Investment (VfI) approach offers a structured alternative. It begins with co-creation processes involving commissioners, implementers, communities and other stakeholders to define the intervention’s value proposition. Stakeholders then develop context-specific criteria and performance standards (captured through evaluative rubrics) before considering methods or evidence sources.

Thinking about evidence requirements last shifts the focus from methods to reasoning. Sometimes economic analysis is appropriate; sometimes it is not. What matters is that criteria and standards are clear, defensible and support decision making. Co-developing definitions of “excellent performance” builds a shared understanding of what stakeholders are trying to achieve. If assessments later judge performance to be weaker, evaluators can transparently explain why and what needs to improve.

The Value for Investment approach also strengthens collective sensemaking. Using rubrics in this way helps position economic methods as one source of evidence rather than the dominant method for assessing VfM. For example, SCBA or SCEA can be valuable for assessing whether the overall benefits of an intervention outweigh its costs (cost-effectiveness), but they are often less useful for evaluating dimensions such as equity or systems change. By defining performance using multiple forms of evidence (instead of relying on a single economic indicator such a benefit-cost-ratio to determine VfM) the approach makes clear that economic analysis provides only part of the story. Rubrics integrate these different perspectives, enabling a more rounded and meaningful assessment of value.

The session will draw on practical experience applying co-creation and the VfI approach in UK local government and housing policy, and in global health, demonstrating how these processes strengthen the credibility and communicability of VfM findings.