Scottish Compact Baseline Review
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 This is the Draft Final Report of the Scottish Compact Baseline Review, submitted to Frauke Sinclair of Social Research's Social Justice: Social Inclusion and Voluntary Issues Branch by GEN Consulting.
1.2 The Review brief contained the following elements:-
- A comparative analysis, looking at the development of monitoring and evaluation frameworks in other national compacts;
- Development of indicators that could be used to inform the monitoring and evaluation process;
- An appraisal of existing information sources and the extent to which they would lend themselves to being used for monitoring and evaluation purposes;
- The formulation of a series of monitoring and evaluation indicators; and
- The development of a number of evaluation frameworks.
1.3 The Review attempted to cover all of these elements. However, in the course of the work it became apparent that some parts were of less relevance than had initially been supposed. For example the appraisal of the existing information sources found that most were of limited use for monitoring and evaluation purposes. It also became clear that to base monitoring solely upon the existing Compact documentation would be misleading as this tended to be very one-sided: being largely focused upon government commitments, rather than the commitments of both partners to the Compact.
1.4 Accordingly the Review deals with some aspects of the original brief in less detail than originally envisaged. It also exceeds some parts of the brief by making a number of recommendations for Compact development, for example the formulation of an Action Plan. Having such a Plan, it is felt, would be very beneficial for monitoring and evaluation.
METHODOLOGY
1.5 The Review involved the collection of information and opinions in a variety of ways:-
- Extensive literature searches using the Web and conventional libraries;
- A number of telephone and email interviews/surveys with people involved in compact developments throughout the United Kingdom and Canada;
- Analysis of a number of information networks and sources;
- A limited number of face-to-face-interviews; and
- A small email survey of members of the Compact Review Group. As of the date of this Report 8 responses had been received.
THE REVIEW'S STRUCTURE
1.6 The Review contains 8 Chapters (including this one). They cover:-
- Chapter 2 is a literature review looking at some of the background to Compact development and the main issues in implementation, monitoring and evaluation;
- Chapter 3 follows this up by looking in detail at the development of the 4 national Compacts in the United Kingdom and the Canadian Compact;
- Chapter 4 looks in more detail at the issues surrounding monitoring and evaluation dealing with such things as what the Compact is, its scope and cause and effect. It finishes by synthesising information from the earlier Chapters and highlights the key areas that any monitoring and evaluation framework needs to cover;
- Having identified the key areas Chapter 5 looks at the information that is available that might have potential to be used for monitoring and evaluation purposes. The conclusion is that existing information is of limited use and monitoring therefore needs to be based on some form of survey;
- Chapter 6 then considers the shape of any survey sample framework that might be used in monitoring and evaluation. It is suggested that a sample of the voluntary sector be covered but that all of government be surveyed;
- Chapter 7 considers the development of monitoring and evaluation indicators and frameworks; and
- Chapter 8 then draws conclusions and makes a number of recommendations intended both to facilitate Compact monitoring and evaluation and to make the Compact implementation process more effective.
1.7 In addition there are 2 Appendices. The first of these gives details of the development of the Edinburgh Compact whilst the second contains a sample survey that could be used to gather monitoring information.
1.8 Throughout the Review the community and voluntary sectors are generally referred to as "the sector" whilst the term Compact is used for agreements between government and the sector, albeit that different countries often use different names (for example the Accord in Canada).