King's College London

In a democracy, deciding the goals of the public sector – whether we want to prioritise young people’s learning of maths, or a broad curriculum including arts and theatre – is a matter for elected ministers or, ultimately, for parliament. However, once these outcomes have been established, it is necessary to adopt a technocratic approach – understanding which of the myriad different ways we could approach a problem will have the greatest impact and represent the best value for money.

Key to this has been the establishment of the What Works Network, whose centres have invested heavily in commissioning or conducting randomised controlled trials to help develop an evidence base across a range of policy areas. At the same time, government itself has become more engaged in running impact evaluations, thanks in no small part to the creation of the Evaluation Task Force which sits between the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.

Despite this investment, we are still in the foothills of an evidence-based policy revolution, one that depends on our ability to conduct randomised trials of high quality and at pace. This means learning from other fields, learning from our own experience, and learning from each other.

That is where the Designing and delivering randomised trials for social policy comes in. It aims to distil the basics of what kinds of trials exist and how to conduct them into a single document, to provide guidance to commissioners and evaluators alike that will help them understand better how trials can be run, and to help share our collective knowledge. Most importantly perhaps, the book aims to reduce variation between trials, and to reduce the cost of running each trial.

• Designing and delivering randomised trials for social policy - (pdf) 3082 Kb