Evidence Based Policy Making: The View From A Centre

Abstract

This article discusses recent developments in thinking about what constitutes good policy making, and in particular the role of ‘evidence’ in that activity. Recognising the current emphasis on evidence based policy-making, it seeks first to trace the sources in both academic and official publications of this term, and to establish how it has come to be used as if it denoted a definable method or body of professional practice. Modemising Government, which stresses the needfor improvement in the processes of policy making and the role that should be played by evidence in them, is an important starting point. The article discusses both the antecedents of this concern, and the ways in which it has been elaborated in a range of subsequent reports. Secondly, it attempts to establish what the rise to prominence of this terminology has meant in practice for officials. The need for better use of evidence, information, research and analysis of all kinds in the development and implementation of policy is widely understood. That there remains a range of views about what legitimately constitutes evidence in this context need not stand in the way of practical improvements in the ways in which policy advisers approach their task.