Monitoring and evaluation of public policies, programmes and projects are required for reasons of accountability, but they are also essential to keep them on track and to ensure that the lessons learned today inform the initiatives of tomorrow.

We hold that monitoring should not be more burdensome than necessary: using data from existing administrative and financial systems, automatized extraction of data from documents, running pre-defined algorithms on the data, user-friendly online tools, simple but relevant indicators for the qualitative assessment of progress (including ‘traffic-lights’) help reduce the time and effort needed by the organisation. We also advocate the move towards ‘real-time monitoring’ based on interlinked management systems or mobile data capture solutions.

Our evaluations are fully aligned with the European Commission’s Better Regulation guidelines, but we also strive to apply the necessary flexibility stemming from our departure from Michael Quinn Patton’s ‘utilisation-focused’ evaluation approach. Our team has long-standing experience with evaluations at organisational level (e.g. EU agencies and governance structures), programme level or policy level across a wider range of policy areas. The interim evaluations and ‘fitness checks’ we conduct help redirect the emphasis of an initiative to ensure value for money, while summative ex-post evaluations focus on accountability and on generating learning points.