Developing an Evaluation Framework for Cross-Cutting Policy Goals: the Accessibility Policy Assessment Tool

This paper reports upon the development of a policy assessment tool designed to evaluate the outcomes of policies promoting increased accessibility to services in rural areas. Much public policy is now concerned with addressing issues (such as accessibility) that span traditional organisational responsibilities and boundaries and thus require ‘joined-up’ thinking. At the same time, public policy is also increasingly required to be ‘evidence based’. As a consequence, it becomes necessary to develop appraisal and evaluation tools capable of assessing the achievements of joined-up policy interventions and their broader impacts on decision making and delivery across a diverse number of stakeholders. The Accessibility Policy Assessment Tool has been developed as a way of focusing more on the wider impacts of policy initiatives and is based upon a realist synthesis and multimethod approach to policy assessment. Through this focus, it has the potential to contribute to broader evaluation practice.