Contribution Analysis
Public services are increasingly operating on the basis of achieving outcomes for people (i.e. the ultimate impact of that service upon those people) as opposed to focussing on inputs (what is put in e.g. staff, money) and outputs (what is produced e.g. a website, a certain number of appointments).
Many of the improved outcomes that they are striving to achieve will be the result of coordinated collaborative action by a range of organisations from across different sectors (public, third and independent). However, there are many other external factors and forces that will also affect change, both positively and negatively.
Contribution Analysis is an approach to planning and evaluation that considerably aids an understanding of whether and in what way particular interventions, services or organisations may be contributing to achieving the desired improvements in a set of outcomes.
The range of interventions and the sequence of changes that would be expected to occur over time are mapped out in the form of a ‘logic model’ or a series of ‘results chains’. The team process of developing these tools involves important steps in the process of developing a joint planning and performance management approach and a joint monitoring and evaluation plan to track whether these changes are being realised in the ways anticipated and intended.
An example of a situation in which this understanding may be important is the work taking place in any given locality under the banner of the Scottish Government’s Reshaping Care for Older People Programme ‘Change Fund’.
The reason that such an understanding matters is because, put simply, in a complex system of interrelated interventions and outcomes, unless it can be ascertained what is actually ‘working’ (and what is not working) in relation to what else, there can be little rational basis on which to allocate resources.
To take a footballing analogy: each team has a squad of players and all of them contribute to the team’s record to a greater or lesser degree but the manager knows that if he wants to win the league title, the league cup and the football association cup he has to clearly understand who to keep, who to buy and who to sell and in all cases he has to be able to answer the question ‘why?’
Below are some documents that offer more detail on Contribution Analysis, and one of its key elements, logic modelling.
Contribution Analysis Article [572Kb]
Contribution Analysis OSCR [104Kb]
