Hints and tips – how to select outcomes
• Select only relevant outcomes and indicators – a ‘scatter-gun’ approach makes the monitoring process more complex and costly in terms of time and resources.
• Opt for a limited number of well chosen outcomes. Discourage your partners from selecting an outcome for every service they intend to deliver. Selecting a lot of outcomes and indicators leads to lengthy and inconclusive reporting.
• You should set outcome targets in relation to existing national and local authority targets, where relevant. For example, if there is an existing local authority target to reduce unemployment, the target for the regeneration area should be more ambitious, in order to reduce the differences in employment between the local authority and regeneration area.
• Use intermediate outcomes as a way of measuring change if the ideal outcome indicator is not practical to measure. For example, many programmes which support healthier eating are intended to have a long term outcome of reducing ill health and the mortality rate. However, these impacts will not be felt for many years to come, so an intermediate outcome would be more appropriate, such as changes in eating behaviour.
• If there are no suitable outcome indicators do not use other data just because it is available.
• Resist the temptation to use direct measures of project delivery (outputs) as outcome indicators - remember that ROAs have separate templates for outcome indicators and outputs. In exceptional cases so-called intermediate outputs can be appropriate. For example, the number of project beneficiaries who quit smoking following advice from a support project is an acceptable indicator if the prevalence of smoking in the community is not recorded by health providers or if a local survey is not gathering such information directly from residents.
• Try to use questions which are used in national household surveys such as the Scottish Household Survey and the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey. Comparing your data to national data makes it easier to establish whether the policy has achieved more than might be expected.
• Use results from survey work undertaken by the local authority and other partners as well as national datasets. For example, some NHS Trusts undertake surveys on perceptions and behaviours e.g. Greater Glasgow NHS Health and Wellbeing Survey. Citizens Panels such as the one developed in Aberdeen can also be a source of information on a range of topics.
• Make sure you select measures that are:
- relevant;
- likely to be influenced by the planned activities;
- can be produced regularly to track progress;
- can be produced quickly enough to be useful;
- easy to understand and capable of being collected consistently;
- reliable enough for their intended use; and
- comparable with past periods or other programmes.
• Consider the relevance of the Closing the Opportunity Gap targets. The targets represent a sensible starting point for local target setting and partners should consider how they can contribute to them through their local targets.
