This inaugural report reflects a whole-of-government effort to assess how evaluation is currently used to determine what works, for whom, and why. Findings show promising signs of increased evaluation efforts across the Australian Government. However, further work is needed to ensure evaluation practices are consistent, high‑quality and routinely used to inform policy design and delivery.

It establishes baseline information on:

• current evaluation activities and practices
• evaluation capability building initiatives
• evaluative culture across the Australian Government.

Key findings

• In-house evaluation units have increased in number and size, which mostly provided advisory services (89%), evaluation capability building (82%) and delivering evaluations (71%).
• Improving implementation was the most common motivation for evaluation (77% of entities), followed by accountability, transparency and knowledge building.
• The most common barrier to embedding a culture of evaluation was limited staff
  time (56% of entities), while support from agency leadership was the most common enabler (69%).
• Two clear areas for improvement are ensuring systems are in place to ensure ethical evaluation, and culturally appropriate evaluation with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.