Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 8

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October 2016 // Canadian Government Executive / 13
Program Evaluation
A Case in Point
Here’s how one federal government
group is striving to improve its evalua-
tion capacity. The Public Health Agency
of Canada (PHAC) and Health Canada
(HC) are served by one evaluation team,
approximately thirty evaluators in the Of-
fice of Audit and Evaluation. This team has
always had a strong focus on continuous
professional development. For example,
attendance at CES workshops and confer-
ences, coaching and mentoring by senior
members, and “lunch and learn” events
have contributed to the development of
team members’ skills. All of these strate-
gies served the team well, but there still
was a desire for more formal recognition
of the team’s competence.
An important realization occurred in
July 2015 when the evaluation team was
combined with the audit team in one cor-
porate office. It became evident that the
federal audit function was more mature
than evaluation in terms of its approach
to professionalization. Audit designations
were recognized in job descriptions and
their pursuit and maintenance were sup-
ported by federal policy. This was not yet
true for evaluation.
As a result, a business case was put
forward to senior management to have
the same recognition and support for
evaluation designations that was already
available for auditors. The concept was
approved in March, 2016. Immediately,
a study group was created to support in-
terested team members’ pursuit of the
CE designation. Speakers were invited to
discuss such topics as the credentialing
process, what Credentialing Board mem-
bers were looking for in a CE application,
and what CEs themselves had to say about
their experience. The group continues to
meet to support evaluators as they work
through their application portfolios and
the team is excited about the number of
designations that are underway or have
already been attained.
Now What?
In 2012/13, under the 2009 federal policy,
there were 459 full time equivalents in
the Federal Government involved in the
completion of 123 evaluations at a total
cost of $56.2 million including salary,
O&M and professional services. With the
strong focus on results and additional
flexibilities in the new policy, and the im-
portant role that evaluation can play in
giving decision makers access to the best
possible information necessary, the po-
tential consequences could be significant
as all federal agencies aim to improve
their evaluation capacity.
But this is only the beginning of the
story. As evaluators work towards greater
competence, they will discover, just as oth-
er professionals have, that the emphasis
then shifts to continuing education. In the
case of the CE, maintenance requirements
demand the completion and reporting of
40 hours of professional development ev-
ery three years. Early feedback suggests
that evaluators actually welcome this re-
quirement because they can legitimately
pursue their own continued improvement,
actively seeking out appropriate training.
Hopefully, as these activities drive home
the professionalization of Canadian fed-
eral evaluators, it will contribute to the
increased recognition of evaluation as an
important profession in government and
this in turn will lead to better outcomes for
federal program participants.
Harry Cummings, PhD, RPP, Shelley
Borys, PhD, CE, Gail Vallance
Barrington, PhD, CE