Impact appraisal and evaluation guidance
Read our appraisal and evaluation guidance to learn how we measure the effect of our activities on Scotland's economy.
We undertake and commission a large number of project and programme appraisals and evaluations each year. We aim to identify the contribution that these projects and programmes make to the growth of the Scottish economy – in particular, their impact on employment and Gross Value Added (GVA).
These impacts, both forecast and actual, inform decisions about public spending. This helps ensure that public funds are used in an efficient and effective way. To achieve this, it's important that all our appraisal and evaluation work meets a high technical standard and uses similar methodologies.
Appraisal and evaluation guidance objectives
Our appraisal and evaluation guidance aims to ensure that any impact assessment for our interventions is undertaken in a consistent and transparent way, using similar approaches.
This will allow Scottish Enterprise and other public bodies compare the impacts of different types of interventions, with the confidence that similar methodologies have been used and similar assumptions have been made.
This will help those who decide between different policy and spending priorities. It provides them with valid comparisons based on consistent measures.
Who this guidance is for
There are a variety of audiences for our appraisal and evaluation guidance:
- Consultants that we commission to undertake work on our behalf
- Our own Appraisal and Evaluation team
- Operational staff who are developing projects and who could find an outline of the approach taken useful
- Partner organisations that may be interested in learning from the approach we have taken to assessment
Download the guidance
Read our impact appraisal and evaluation guidance to learn how we assess the impacts of our activities. The full guidance is available as a PDF document.
You can use the contents on page 2 of the document to locate the most relevant sections. Pages 6 to 10 provide a glossary listing short definitions of some of the most common terms encountered when undertaking impact assessments.