Think tank New Philanthropy Capital and offenders charity Clinks have launched a project to support voluntary and community sector organisations working in criminal justice with their impact reporting.

Today sees the first phase of the year-long Improving Your Evidence project, funded by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and supported by the organisations that are part of Project Oracle, a youth evidence hub.

The project aims to help the organisations identify, produce and use good quality evidence which will enable them to evaluate what does and doesn’t work with offenders.

Survey and events

NPC and Clinks are asking relevant organisations to complete a survey on their current research and evaluation activities, areas of evaluation activity they would like support with and what kind of support they would like. The results of the survey will then feed into the project as it progresses.

Organisations can also sign up, for free through Clinks, to one of a series of Improving Your Evidence events being held nationwide.

The events will debate what makes good evidence as well as effective monitoring and evaluation, and will look at ways of meeting the challenges these bring.

NPC: now is the time for research and evaluation

Dan Corry, Chief Executive of NPC, said that with the justice secretary’s proposals for transforming rehabilitation emphasising the need to deliver outcomes, now is the time for charitable sector organisations working in the criminal justice sector to embrace research and evaluation.

“This may seem a daunting task for some charities, especially as so many are seeing their resources dwindling, but it needn’t be frightening," he said. “Through this project, we look forward to providing the support organisations and individuals need to generate the quality evidence that will do justice to their work.”

Clive Martin, director of Clinks, added that many of the charity’s members tell it they are concerned by how success is measured and how impact is attributed across different interventions.

“Voluntary and community sector organisations are increasingly being asked to provide good quality evidence of the effectiveness of their service,” he said. “This project will support the sector to evidence the impact of the work they do with offenders, highlight activities that work and improve on what doesn’t.”