Economic evaluation of complex social initiatives: feasible but not practicable at present?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Economic evaluation of complex social initiatives

T2 - feasible but not practicable at present?

AU - Pennington, Mark

AU - Dickinson, Heather

AU - Walker, Jan

AU - Gray, Joanne

AU - Donaldson, Cam

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Decision makers increasingly request evidence on the cost-effectiveness of socialinitiatives to inform roll-out and development. In practice, economic evaluation israrely applied to social initiatives. Whilst the innate complexity of social initiativesgenerates challenges for economic evaluation, the difficulty is often compounded by the way in which initiatives are piloted. We examine the difficulties in undertaking economic evaluation of complex social initiatives using the recent evaluation of Budget-holding Lead Professionals, an initiative to enhance personalisation of services to children with additional needs, as a case study. We illustrate how the lack of a robust study design and the limitations of local data management structures hampered the evaluation and limited the resulting findings. We then highlight changes to the way in which complex social initiatives are piloted which would allow economic evaluation to play a greater role in their evaluation.

AB - Decision makers increasingly request evidence on the cost-effectiveness of socialinitiatives to inform roll-out and development. In practice, economic evaluation israrely applied to social initiatives. Whilst the innate complexity of social initiativesgenerates challenges for economic evaluation, the difficulty is often compounded by the way in which initiatives are piloted. We examine the difficulties in undertaking economic evaluation of complex social initiatives using the recent evaluation of Budget-holding Lead Professionals, an initiative to enhance personalisation of services to children with additional needs, as a case study. We illustrate how the lack of a robust study design and the limitations of local data management structures hampered the evaluation and limited the resulting findings. We then highlight changes to the way in which complex social initiatives are piloted which would allow economic evaluation to play a greater role in their evaluation.

KW - Cost effectiveness

KW - Social Policy

KW - budget holding lead professionals

M3 - Article

VL - 8

SP - 5

EP - 20

JO - Social & Public Policy Review

JF - Social & Public Policy Review

IS - 1

ER -