How do we know whether a government policy really works? There’s a lot of expertise across government in evaluating policy or policy ideas. Recently, however, the Cabinet Office has been looking at carrying out randomised controlled trials (RCTs) as a way of getting a clearer idea about the effectiveness of an intervention compared to doing nothing.
RCTs – more often associated with drug trials – can also be used in the formulation of social policy. The Government’s Behavioural Insights Team (often referred to as the ‘nudge’ unit) worked with Dr Ben Goldacre, Bad Science author and research fellow at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Professor David Torgerson of the York Trials Unit. They looked at the potential use of RCTs in a policy context, and produced Test, Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials. The ‘test, learn, and adapt’ approach works in sequence – testing an intervention to evaluate effectiveness, learning to see what works and whether it offers value for money, and adapting the intervention so to improve the policy.
I am all in favour of evaluating policies, something that we are doing with our flagship Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. However, I’m not convinced that what works for testing the effectiveness of a new drug, i.e. an RCT, is necessarily the best, or only, approach for assessing policies on issues such as food safety.
Surely the key message is the importance of building-in appropriate evaluation methodology into the policy cycle at the beginning, rather than a slavish adoption of RCTs?