How to develop an Improvement Plan to address evaluation recommendations

This guideline is designed to apply across government. We refer here to the role of ‘evaluation custodian’. In evaluations under the National Evaluation Plan (NEP), the evaluation commissioner is the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME). In evaluations under Provincial Evaluation Plans this is the Office of the Premier. In departmental evaluations this is the M&E Unit. In municipalities and State-owned Entities (SOEs) this is likely also to be the M&E Unit.

The purpose of the Improvement Plan is to:

• Ensure utilisation of evaluation findings and consequently strengthening of the programme/project/policy/plan in question;
• Track/monitor the implementation of recommendations; and
• Keep stakeholders abreast of the necessary actions that will be taken to improve the delivery of a programme, project or policy. These could be changes to the policy or programme, amendments to implementation strategies or changes to internal budget allocations.