Making a Difference: A Guide to Evaluating Public Participation in Central Government

This guide to evaluating public participation is intended to help those involved in planning, organising, or funding these activities to understand the different factors involved in creating effective public participation. It is focused on helping planners set and measure attainable objectives, evaluate impact, and identify lessons for future practice. Using clear language, simple instructions, illustrative case studies, and a glossary, this guide is a tool for those involved in running or commissioning public participation in central government and beyond.

It is designed with a main page that links to a PDF document of the guide or to the following different sections of the guide:

• Introduction
  
• How can evaluation help?
  
• Public engagement in public policy-making
• Thinking about objectives
• When to start evaluation
• Measuring success
  
• Doing the evaluation: What should it cover?
• Doing the evaluation: How to do it
• After the evaluation
• Annex 1: Glossary
  
• Annex 2: Costs and benefits of engagement
  
• Annex 3: Your Health, Your Care, Your Say - a case example of evaluation
• Annex 4: Principles of good practice
• Annex 5: Guides to engagement