How to develop a Management Response to an Evaluation Report

The research part of an evaluation is considered complete when the Evaluation Steering Committee approves the final evaluation report as a valid independent report. At this stage, a custodian department would have provided comments on the draft report (e.g. to correct factual errors or to query recommendations) but there may still be areas in the report that the department concerned does not agree with. For example, evaluators may come up with some recommendations that are not feasible, or departments may not agree with certain recommendations. Provided the report is technically valid and factually correct, the report should be approved by the Evaluation Steering Committee as an independent report. However, it is important for departments/entities/municipalities to be able to register the areas they do not agree with. Hence departments/ entities/municipalities are provided an opportunity to provide a formal management response indicating which recommendations they accept, and substantive reasons for disagreement for the ones they do not accept.

The purpose of the Management Response is to:

• Ensure departments have an opportunity to respond to the specific recommendations from the evaluation indicating which they disagree with, and why;
• Ensure that those recommendations that are agreed upon are identified for taking forward.
• Ensure that all recommendations are evidence based, that they respond adequately to equity challenges, and that they have strong utilisation value.