Steps in Policy Evaluation
Making public policy does not end with the formulation of new legislation, passage by a legislative body and implementation by an authorized agency of government. The next stage involves evaluating policy, including its content, implementation, and intended and unintended effects. Evaluation often leads to changes and revisions in existing policies. Evaluation experts in government agencies and public policy analysis firms conduct these assessments, which require examination of policy actions and effects, as well as an understanding of the difficulties involved in this type of research.
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Instructions
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Review the policy in question to understand its context, goals and objectives. Reading a policy's legislative history provides insight into the conditions that led to passage of the new law or regulation. A review of the policy itself will provide an understanding of its goals and objectives. You cannot know if a policy achieved its goals without knowing what they are.
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Determine appropriate measures for determining the outcomes of a policy. Outcomes refer to the societal consequences that stem from policy action or inaction. Political scientist James E. Anderson, author of "Public Policymaking," cautions that outcomes can be intended or unintended. Examples of outcomes include lower unemployment, improved economic output, reduced poverty or higher academic achievement. An evaluation of a policy designed to stimulate a sagging economy might use the Gross Domestic Product and national unemployment rates as outcome measures.
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Collect appropriate data on policy outputs. Outputs consist of the actions taken by government agencies to implement a new law or regulation. Examples include the amount of taxes collected, number of projects funded or the number of cases processed. Outputs from an economic stimulus policy might include number of infrastructure projects and their dollar value, and the amount of tax reductions granted. Anderson pointed out that outputs are much easier to collect and analyze.
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Analyze output and outcome measures to evaluate the success or failure of the policy. This rarely is a straightforward activity, as other factors unrelated to the policy in question might have contributed to the outcomes in question. Using the economic stimulus example, higher output and lower unemployment might have resulted from cyclical changes in the economy itself rather than from specific actions in the economic stimulus policy. Determining causality is one of the most difficult steps in policy evaluation, meaning that analysts must be careful when crediting changes to specific policies.
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Tips & Warnings
Many public policies might have ambiguous and diffuse goals, further complicating efforts to evaluate them. This often occurs because of the complexity of the legislative process, in which lawmakers strike deals and make compromises to secure passage of a bill.
