Brooke Evaluation Policy

Reason for Policy: To allow the Board to expand the culture of accountability, transparency and quality improvement, in the pursuit of a world in which working horses, donkeys and mules are free from suffering.

1. POLICY

STATEMENT Objectives

The Policy aims for the Charity to set the basis for developing evaluation procedures to improve and strengthen the practice of evaluation in support of the Charity values.

Evaluation is a process to establish value, worth and merit of our intervention. It is both a management and organizational learning tool to support affiliates, branches and partners in helping more working animals in need in more places around the world. The three objectives of the Policy are:

  1. Accountability – To improve Charity-wide transparency and accountability for impact of its actions through affiliates, branches and partners;
  2. Learning – To contribute feedback for learning and ongoing improvement of the Charity’s work and the wider sector; and
  3. Management – To strengthen the decision-making process by the senior leadership team based on sound assessment of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, impact and sustainability of the Charity interventions.

Norms and Standards

The Charity is committed to align with international norms and standards (1) to ensure quality of evaluation. The following principles guide evaluation at the Charity:

  • Professionalism: Evaluations will be undertaken by qualified evaluators. Both external and internal evaluators will adhere to the highest ethical and technical standards, the Animal Welfare Policy, apply methodological rigour and respond to criteria of professionalism, impartiality and credibility, including the handling of confidential information in line with the Handling of Confidential Information and Personal Data Procedures. Evaluation reports will provide a critical assessment and an independent perspective; generate lessons learnt, good practices and actionable recommendations for improvement.
  • Usefulness and Participation: The evaluation process will be conducted in a highly participatory way to create ownership of the findings and recommendations from all relevant stakeholders. Participation will help ensure findings are relevant and used. Key evaluation stakeholders will be identified and involved during the planning and the reporting stage of the evaluation process.
  • Transparency and Learning: Evaluations will be conducted using a transparent process and results made available to all parties concerned. Evaluation findings and recommendations will be disseminated across the Charity, enabling the incorporation of findings for management decision making process and supporting organisational learning. These will also be shared externally with relevant partners, donors and NGOs.
  • Credibility and Independence: The Charity will ensure impartiality through the separation of the evaluation responsibility from line management functions for programmes and projects. Evaluators will be selected through competitive bidding process and according to agreed criteria to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

Evaluation Types

The Charity will conduct centralised and decentralised evaluations defined along the following elements:

  • Scope (project, country programme, thematic, strategy, policy);
  • Degree of independence (self-evaluation, internal, independent, external);
  • Timing (mid-term, final, ex-post); and
  • Category of evaluation (economic, process, performance, impact).

Budget

The evaluation procedures will define the % of total project budget to be allocated for evaluation purpose. Senior Leadership Team/ Board of Trustees (SLT/BoT) will set up an evaluation fund commensurate with the annual evaluation plan for all other types of evaluation not funded through project budget.

Integrating Evaluation with Results-Based Management

The Charity will ensure that evaluations are timely and available at a time which is appropriate for the decision-making process. Evaluation findings and recommendations will be used during the preparation of the Multi-Year Plan and project documents to better link budget decisions to expected outcomes and impact. Evaluation will contribute to strengthening the coherence between results and resource allocation.

Evaluation Function

The evaluation function is designed to be objective and independent. Its objective is two-fold: (i) to strengthen external credibility and the culture of learning and (ii) to provide better support to the governance and oversight function roles of SLT/BoT.

The Performance and Evaluation Department (P&E) ensures that evaluation functions in the Charity are systematically fulfilled in a transparent, reliable, credible and professional manner. The Charity has established a network of M&E focal persons in affiliates, branches and partners offices that support this work. P&E prepares an annual evaluation plan and a periodic report on the status of the implementation of the evaluation recommendations for SLT/BoT.

2. DEFINITIONS

For the purpose of the Policy the following terms shall apply:

Charity: the Brooke Hospital for Animals.
Evaluation (2) : is an evidence-based assessment of strategy, policy or programme and project outcomes, by determining their relevance, impact, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision making process of both recipients and donors.
Policy: this evaluation policy.

3. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Board of Trustees are the responsible for overall compliance with the Policy. They are the recipient of the annual evaluation plan and the periodic report on the status of the implementation of the evaluation recommendations.

The Chief Executive Officer oversees implementation of the Policy.

The Performance and Evaluation Department ensures quality of evaluation meets international standards and monitors the Charity compliance with the Evaluation Policy.

The Evaluation Manager manages independent evaluation in line with the policy and procedures.

Senior Leadership Team / International Senior Leadership Team approve the annual evaluation plan, are responsible for ensuring that they and their team members are aware of what their obligations are in compliance with the policy and use the evaluation procedures when conducting evaluation.

Staff are responsible for familiarising and complying with the policy as applicable to their role.

4. HISTORY

Document control

Version: 1.0

Status: Created in May 2017

Department:  Director of Planning and Performance

Author(s): Head of Performance and Evaluation

Notes
1 Evaluating Development Co-operation, Summary of Key Norms and Standards
2 Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management OECD/DAC (2002)