Needs assessment and evaluation : service improvement and women

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Needs assessment and evaluation service
improvement and women

• Professor Gill Scott
• Director, Scottish Poverty Information Unit
• School of Law and Social Sciences, Glasgow
  Caledonian University

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Context

• Competing expectations of needs assessment and
  evaluation
• Technical demands
• Aids economic allocation
• Increases accountability
• Policy/ Service enhancement
• Understanding how a situation arose and
  opportunities for change
• Understanding how a service/ policy works
• Basis of service development

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Stages

• If you dont know where youre going how will
  you know if you get there?
• Outset - needs assessment( ex ante evaluation?)
• Extent of problem for women and differences
  between men and women
• Reasons for existence - relationship and existing
  service analysis
• Scope for change
• To inform intervention logic, programme
  instruments anticipated outcomes for women
• Outcomes and impact evaluation
• Final and interim evaluations
• Indicators inputs, outputs, results and impacts
  on women (nb race, disability)

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Challenges

• Gendered breakdowns are seldom available at
  local level, often have gaps, are in an unusable
  form and not consistent
• Over-reliance on statistical data
• Lack of local voices means it becomes difficult
  to avoid passive approach or develop local trust
• Needs analysis and evaluation too often not
  connected
• Under-use of needs analysis and evaluation to
  provide evidence of what works for wider learning

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Gendered indicators

• Disaggregated - gender, race and disability
• Key to usefulness
• Easily understood
• Credible
• Simple
• Communicable
• Relevant/ sensitive to the situation to be
  addressed and intervention
• Gender equality indicators for Northern Ireland -
  little clarity over which are key for
  evaluating equality
• Regeneration agencies in Scotland- disaggregated
  data in education and employment but little else
  - violence, gender stereotypes, decision making?

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Over reliance on statistical data

• Value of different methods of collecting data
• Quality of info and way it is presented matter
• Photos, community walk, video (nb DEEP Welsh
  EQUAL DP)
• Models from development organisations can be
  useful source e.g. OXFAM

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Local involvement

• Needs assessment and evaluation works best when
  local community, local services and women are
  involved.
• Respect and empowerment both important. Not just
  an issue of distribution
• Women and Childrens Poverty - Making the Links
  (2005) Involved workshops across the country to
  identify the needs of women in relation to local
  and national policy
• Barr (1996) Essential that basis for evaluation
  is negotiated with community
• Involvement and honesty are important for
  developing trust. Communication.
• Feedback at all stages helps the process of
  policy formulation, implementation, evaluation
  and further service development

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Integration in planning cycle

• Prioritisation will always need to be undertaken
  but gender sensitive NA and Evaluation can help
  identify which issues to take forward and how.
  Plus if done effectively key stakeholders will
  support change
• Thurrock Gender Mainstreaming Project
• Questions to be addressed.
• Does planned or achieved intervention promote
  gender equality?
• Are/were activities designed to be appropriate
  for women and are/ were they adequate to achieve
  gender equality?
• Outputs fairly distributed between men and women?
  Adequate to achieve gender equality?
• Are the inputs adequate to achieve gender
  equality in service and outcomes?
• Identifying the potential and need for change

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A local issue or lessons for all?

• Promise of needs assessment and evaluation
• Allows assessment of effectiveness of promising
  approaches
• Can help to distil their critical elements
• Can provide real basis for promoting gender
  focused change