This evaluation tested whether an extra email reminder could improve timely charity reporting. Involving 15,000 charities, the trial showed that sending a direct reminder to someone responsible increased on-time submissions from 56% to 62%. The approach worked across all charity types, proving simple nudges can boost compliance.

This guide is for policy and program staff involved in designing and implementing pilot programs. Pilot programs help policymakers test new approaches to improve outcomes for program participants. There are step-by-step instructions for each stage, including advice on how evaluation findings can be used while you run the pilot and after it finishes.

Randomised trials are a powerful tool for estimating the ‘causal effects’ of a program or policy. This report takes stock of the published randomised policy trials that have been conducted in Australia, examines the ethics and cultural appropriateness of randomised trials, and discusses future directions for randomised policy trials in Australia.

This 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.

This report summarises the methods, findings and lessons learnt from an Australian Government trial of Microsoft 365 Copilot, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. The trial explored Copilot’s potential as a generative AI example, its safe implementation, and its short- and long-term benefits and challenges. The report concludes with recommendations for how any future implementation of...