Policy evaluation is a systematic process of observation, measurement, analysis and interpretation to arrive at an understanding of a government initiative, which could be a regulation, a programme, a plan or a policy, and thus draw evidence-based evaluative conclusions about its design, implementation, effects, outcomes and impacts. The purpose of evaluation is to aid government decision-makers and managers for the benefit of the community.

The evaluation process accepts that there is a wide diversity of approaches and standpoints, and must bear in mind that its ultimate aim is to benefit society. In that awareness, the following points of reference are regarded as of key significance for policy evaluation:

• Evaluation is a specific, distinctive activity that stands clearly apart from internal monitoring, financial audit, management audit and budget control, but is nonetheless a closely related complement of all these processes.
• The Agency conceives of evaluation as an institutional activity embedded in a broad policy of government modernisation, innovation and governance.
• Evaluation makes evidence- and benchmark-based evaluative judgments that are not replaceable by mere description or measurement.
• Evaluation enlists the quantitative and qualitative tools of the social sciences and the techniques of public management. Evaluation systematically applies a rigorous method of information-processing in order to arrive at an accurate understanding of the reality it seeks to lay bare.
• Evaluation can address a government intervention in all or any of its facets of design, application, implementation and completion. The goal is to garner learning and a comprehensive grasp of the government intervention assessed.
• Evaluation embraces political and democratic aspects (government accountability and transparency) and issues of strategy and management (improved decision-making and performance).
  Evaluation, beyond its past role as operational and retrospective, is now also strategic and prospective.
  Evaluation is regarded in a pluralistic way, and seeks to capture the perceptions and judgments of the key actors.
• The ultimate goal of evaluation is to improve service to society by raising the effectiveness of the public sector and perfecting the quality of democracy.