How to Develop an Improvement Plan to address evaluation recommendations

This guideline is designed to apply across government. We refer here to the role of ‘evaluation custodian’. In evaluations under the National Evaluation Plan (NEP), the evaluation commissioner is the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). In evaluations under Provincial Evaluation Plans this is the Office of the Premier. In departmental evaluations this is the M&E Unit. In municipalities and State-owned Entities (SOEs) this is likely also to be the M&E Unit.

The research part of an evaluation is considered complete once the Evaluation Steering Committee approves the final evaluation report as a technically valid report and without any factual errors. Evaluators may not come up with feasible recommendations and departments may not agree with all the recommendations. Therefore, state institutions are provided an opportunity to provide a Management Response indicating which recommendations they agree to, and for the ones they disagree with they are expected to indicate why. Guideline 2.2.5 outlines the process with the Management Response. However, If the reasons for disagreeing with recommendations are not convincing to government institutions1, then the reasons for disagreement will be indicated in the final set of documents for the evaluation projects, including submission to Cabinet where it is required.