Published by Skills for Justice

Date 25.02.25
The justice sector relies heavily on the capabilities and efficiencies of its workforce. New innovative projects in the justice sector aim to enhance skills, streamline processes, and address pressing challenges. But how do organisations know if their chosen initiatives are working, and their investment is paying off?
Evaluating the impact of a project in the justice sector is more than just an administrative task. Understanding the impact is vital in achieving meaningful, sustainable change. This process involves measuring outcomes that go beyond just the immediate deliverables and include longer term outcomes.
In this article, we’ll explore why impartially in evaluating impact is so important, and how the logic model is used within Skills for Justice for evaluating impact.
Evaluating the outcomes of a new change ensures that the initiative (it could be a training programme or new policy, for example) is achieving its intended goals and that the resources are being used effectively. This also helps with identifying areas for improvement, eliminating inefficiencies, and maximising the positive impact for the organisation, as well as informing decisions about future initiatives
Evaluation helps ensure that initiatives have a lasting impact. By identifying best practices, unintended consequences, and lessons learned, organisations can adapt and improve initiatives to extend impact further into the future and to meet the changing needs of the sector. Identifying better outcomes may include reduced crime rates, for instance. As a result of reduced crime rates, an organisation may see cost savings due to the reduction in demand and/or improved utilisation of the workforce.
Evaluating outcomes can generate data and insights that can inform broader policy decisions. By understanding what initiatives have worked, successful strategies can be scaled, policies refined, and resources allocated more effectively to strengthen the sector as a whole.
It doesn’t matter how great a programme or project is if the evaluation is not done in the right way. Evaluating the outcomes of results internally will never be as rigorous as an external evaluation of results – it’s like marking your own homework. Using an external organisation to evaluate outcomes offers several advantages that enhance the credibility and accuracy of results.
The research team at Skills for Justice are experts in conducting external impact and process evaluations of frameworks, programmes, projects, and services across the justice sector. Depending on the requirements of an evaluation, we may use a logic model to map the chain of events that will lead to change, or a Theory of Change (ToC) model that works to uncover the mechanisms behind developments and how impact is achieved. These frameworks help us evaluate the effectiveness of a project in a structured way, ensuring the outcomes are thought about on a short, medium, and long-term basis.
A logic framework provides a clear understanding of how a programme or project operates, its intended outcomes, and the activities required to achieve them. It helps to identify any external challenges or assumptions that may impact progress, and maps the relationship across the inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes, providing clarity on how each component is connected. It will help to identify whether the resources are available, and activities, outputs, and outcomes are achievable, measurable, and deliverable.
Download your own copy of our logic model to start thinking about evaluating your projects and measuring success.
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We adopt and adapt good practice in all our evaluation work, seeking to review and assess the following as a minimum:
Our team has a long history of successful evaluation projects across the justice sector, including the following examples:
Our research and evaluation team has a unique blend of academic and operational experience, giving us an unmatched perspective and understanding of the justice sector and the challenges it faces. We can provide independent evaluations of your initiatives, projects, programmes, interventions giving you confidence in the impact and innovation of your work. Get in touch with us today.
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