Posted by Ella Garside on Friday 13th January 2012
Results Based Accountability is measuring the success of a project based wholly on its impact on a community; the results.
In order to be able to establish the amount of change in a community or group you must first be able to accurately assess where the community is at the outset of the project – the baseline.
However, Results Based Accountability goes further than that, because whilst most outcome focussed monitoring establishes the baseline as a ‘Single point in time’ (the situation at the point it was assessed); RBA seeks to establish the situation historically and the likely trend, if the intervention doesn’t take place. The ability of the project or intervention to influence positively this trend is referred to as ‘Bending the Curve’.
Forecasting is inherently difficult to do, but essential if we are to accurate measure the change a project makes.
The following are important elements to forecasting:
Once you have established the likely future trends and historic basis for the problem it is essential you understand the reasons for the problem. The why?
‘The why?’ is important because this information will influence the strategies used to respond to the problem.
Not all unemployment will be resolved by Job Club. If the issue is that people in a rural location do not have transport to travel to work then the solution is to provide transport. If an area has a highly skilled unemployed population who are skilled in a now obsolete trade, then the solution lies in high quality technical retraining.
This information is referred to as ‘The Story Behind the Baseline’.
Remember that a population will be subject to an ongoing series of external influences both positive and negative which impact on your forecasting.
Once you have established the trend both historic and as a forecast, and once you have established the reasons for the trend it is useful to ask the following questions.
1. Do you expect the trend to continue in the same direction and if so why?
This indicates that the influences causing the problem are current and will continue unless intervention takes place.
It suggests that without intervention, the problem will not resolve itself, and will continue along the same path.
2. Do you anticipate that the trend will continue in its current direction, faster, slower or the same and why?
This is important because if you are tackling something which, as a result of powerful external factors is likely to get worse this will impact on your apparent levels of success.
Tackling unemployment with the aim of reducing it from 5% to 3% will be made more difficult if an area experiences massive job losses which raise the unemployment level to 7%. Your project may positively affect unemployment levels but the evidence of the impact will be lost if you do not forecast correctly.
3. Will the trend flatten out, when will it flatten out and at what level? And once again, why?
Sometimes trends reach a plateau by themselves, without any intervention. It is important to recognise when this forecast situation is likely because this inevitable outcome should not be claimed as a result.
4. Do you know if the trend is likely to change direction, when and why?
Again it may be that another initiative has a far reaching benefit which impacts positively on the trend, prior to or alongside your planned intervention. It is important to recognise this impact in your results and not to claim achievements that cannot be attributed to your project.
This issue is less of a problem in multi-agency cluster working, because effective clusters will include all relevant initiatives seeking to tackle the problem. In this situation the cluster can legitimately claim the impact of the change of trend but not necessarily at an individual projects level.
Establishing your story behind the baseline:
Behind the baseline stories need to be short, focussed and easy to understand.
As you work on your ‘Behind the Baselines Stories, you might talk with as many people with different points of view and as many parts of your community as you can. Don’t expect everyone to agree.
Bev Garside delivers Results Based Accountability training for individuals and organisations.
Our next course is:
Thursday 26th January 2012 – Cardiff Business Centre, Barry, Cardiff CLICK HERE to book your place today!
To explore the opportunity of creating an RBA system for your organisation through training contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call 01443 749 787 or visit our website www.empowersvs.co.uk
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