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How do I monitor, develop action plans and evaluate my strategy?

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This part of the toolkit explains how you should monitor and evaluate your strategy.

It covers:

• ongoing monitoring as a way of managing your strategy 
  

• developing action plans for each priority area in your strategy 
  

• the processes for monitoring and evaluating activity under the priority areas 
  

Remember - that for drugs, the processes for setting targets and milestones against key performance indicators and local priorities is a key part of the Performance Management Framework for the National Drug Strategy. 

You should use this framework to monitor progress in this area. The framework contains detailed guidance on developing local plans and a checklist for what the local planning process should address. References to the framework and how it applies in the areas covered by this part of the toolkit are explained in each section.  When you are setting and agreeing crime targets that apply to monitoring, action planning and evaluating in relation to drugs, you should follow this advice and not the more general advice about ongoing monitoring and developing action plans.

Ongoing monitoring

You must carry out ongoing monitoring of your strategy to:

• manage your strategy effectively
  

• make sure that it becomes a living and dynamic process rather than a stable and stagnant document

Your strategy should:

• be marketed as a key document to everyone involved in community safety in your area. Refer to it and use it as the basis for performance monitoring
  

• reflect the approach you are taking to monitoring

For the National Drug Strategy, setting targets and milestones against national drugs key performance indicators and local priorities is a key part of the Performance Management Framework. 

Use this framework to monitor progress. Responsibility for delivery rests with local partners and the key performance indicators are part of the performance management frameworks, inspectorates and rating systems of relevant government departments. Home Office teams in the English regions will forward data on progress against these key performance indicators to partnerships on every quarter.

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Developing action plans 

It is essential that you develop action plans for each priority area in your strategy to:

• make sure implementation is realistic 
  

• provide a basis for ongoing monitoring and evaluation, which is essential if you are turn your strategy into action
  

• make sure that work is broken down into manageable chunks with interim targets and milestones 

The National Drug Strategy Performance Management Framework emphasises that:

• local planning is essential
  

• partnerships will be held to account for what their plans deliver, not the planning process itself

Find detailed guidance on developing local plans and a checklist covering what the local planning process should address in the Performance Management Framework

You can include your action plans in your strategy document.

Action plans should include:

• The priority's aim, objective and associated target
  Objectives and targets must be clear and mean something to those who are being asked to work towards achieving them.  For misuse of drugs objectives, you must define the problem, including performance management information needed locally. 
  

• The interventions/actions through which the crime and disorder objective will be achieved
  The crime analysis techniques used in your audit should help you design appropriate interventions. 
  
  You can find examples of some approaches in the Home Office's "Guidance on Statutory Crime and Disorder Partnerships"

  Use problem solving approaches such as SARA and the Problem Analysis triangle. Find out more about these concepts in the "Passport to Crime Reduction". The 5is Framework is designed to capture knowledge of good practice in a way that helps replication and innovation.  You can also refer to the National Drug Strategy Performance Managment Framework 

  Use available evidence of what works.  It may be difficult to find extensive evidence for what works, however this is a growing area and there are some useful sources of information:

  • Crime Reduction Website
    

  • National Drug Strategy
    

  • Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (JDI)
    

  • U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
    

  • Cabinet Office
    

  • Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM)
    

  • The Evidence for Policy and Practice Information Centre (EPPI)
    

  • The Campbell Collaboration
    

  • The Cochrane Collaboration
    

  • Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York
    

  • Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF)

• Inputs/Outputs and Outcomes
  Each intervention will need the project inputs, outputs and outcome to be specified:
  

  • Inputs are the resources that need to be dedicated to the project to achieve the desired outcomes.
    E.g. staff time, printing costs
    

  • Outputs are the tasks that are carried out to achieve the outcome.
    E.g. establishing a baseline, producing a strategy, producing quarterly reports, distributing crime prevention packs to residents each quarter
    

  • Outcomes are what you hope to achieve.  Your outcome should relate to your overall aim.
    E.g. a decrease in anti-social behaviour

  The National Drug Strategy Performance Management Framework is a results/outcomes based framework.  Each aim of the National Drug Strategy has a high level outcome with a number of key performance indicators/measures.  Local partnerships can also set their own local priorities and will still need to:

  • identify available resources

  • identify risks to delivery

  • address diversity issues

  • consider communication/engagement with the local community
    

• Baselines
  The baseline is the situation at the start of an intervention before any work has been done.  
  
  Baselines are a key part of monitoring and evaluation because they enable you measure what your actions have achieved.  Partnerships will have local or national baselines for their work in relation to the National Drug Strategy and should use these when they are available.
  

• Performance measures 
  Performance measures are used to see whether inputs, outputs and outcomes are being achieved. 
  
  Choose performance measures that support each other so that they can provide good evidence of an intervention's success or failure.  If your chosen performance measurement information is not readily available you should develop processes to collect it. 
  

The Performance Management Framework Resource Pack contains more information about the core key performance indicators for each strand of the National Drug Strategy: reducing supply, communities, young people and treatment.  This framework should be used to monitor progress on drug related.

• Lead agency/officer
  It is essential to have a lead agency or officer to provide an overview and check progress against the plan.  The lead officer can also delegate particular area of work within the project team.
  

• Timetable for action
  A timetable is important so that you can:
  

  • chart the key stages in the intervention

  • create a critical path for the intervention by highlighting which activities, if completed late, will delay the project as a whole.  You may find Gantt charts helpful.

  • put interventions in a logical order by working out how short, medium and long term work interacts

    Here is an example of an intervention action plan

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Monitoring and evaluation processes

You must set up processes for reviewing objectives, targets and action plans.  

Setting targets and milestones against the national key performance indicators and local priorities is a key element of the Performance Management Framework for the National Drug Strategy and this framework should be used to monitor progress. 

The Crime Reduction Centre's "Passport to Evaluation" provides an excellent introduction to issues around monitoring and evaluation. 

Make sure you know why you are monitoring/evaluating an intervention and have a clear idea of what you want to know as a result of the process.

Use a model for evaluation to help plan your monitoring and evaluation processes, such as the one described in part three of the "Passport to Evaluation".

Describe the monitoring and evaluation processes in your strategy document including:

• How often monitoring/evaluation will take place
  

• Details of who is responsible for collecting and analysing the monitoring information
  

• The format in which the information be presented.
  

• To whom the information will be presented for comment/action
  

• How the findings will inform the strategy review process

You will need to have systems in place to monitor regularly the progress of your action plans at a strategic level so that mitigating action can be taken to achieve your objective if the chosen intervention is not working.

Here is an example of a monitoring and evaluation framework for an intervention

You should use the National Drug Strategy Performance Management Framework to monitor progress of the drugs element of your strategy. Government Offices in the English Regions will receive data on progress against the key performance indicators and local priorities, by local partnership area, on every quarter.  This process will ensure ongoing monitoring of the progress of regions and local partnerships.

Monitoring progress against key milestones allows partnerships to learn and do something different if what they are doing is not producing the results they want.

The Drug Strategy Directorate guidance documents give detailed advice on how to evaluate success and many good examples are available.  Two examples include guidance on "Tackling Crack Markets" and "Tackling Drugs as part of Neighbourhood Renewal", which specify in detail how to evaluate these two types of interventions.

You should also consider:

• carrying out regular "mini audits".  The audit and strategy process is a living one and one way to reinforce this is to carry out regular "mini audits" to review crime and misuse of drugs trends and priority areas in the strategy
  

• whether you fully understand the difference between monitoring and evaluation. It may not always be practical to evaluate all interventions and monitoring can suffice where evaluation would involve disproportionate costs.
  

  • Monitoring is the process of continually assessing a project’s progress towards its objectives.  It focuses on inputs, outputs and targets

  • Evaluation focuses on the effectiveness of a project or policy at a specific point in time - Has its focus on the ‘outcomes’ achieved in respect of the objectives
    

• when to monitor and evaluate
  

• monitoring is key and performance management should be undertaken in all cases

• carrying out basic evaluations of projects where funds are limited
  

• carrying out full evaluations of projects that are innovative, costly or likely to produce robust findings
  

• using the the Self Assessment Framework (SAF) as a tool for promoting continuous improvement in both strategic and operational delivery.

Tell me more about the Self Assessment Framework

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Last update: Monday, September 01, 2008