Essentially, an effectiveness evaluation looks at the cost, the effectiveness, the results, and can occasionally look at the process around the delivery. It looks at the effectiveness and efficiencies around the program and the initiative. If you're setting up an initiative or program to achieve a certain set of results, it really is critical to set out what your performance measures will be—which is now clearly the responsibility of the program managers—for us to be able to assess whether the program and the initiative are achieving the intended results. Sometimes it can do so over a very long period, so we measure periodically. That's why we need to cover the entire program suite within a five-year period. On average, 20% of the program should be reviewed.
It also should give us some baseline information and means of addressing whether the programs are meeting the objectives and how they can be adjusted to do so. We found that particularly key in supporting the strategic reviews that departments are currently undertaking to identify the least-performing programs or initiatives, in order to reallocate expenditures to higher-performing programs. It's very difficult to do so if you don't have very good effectiveness evaluations.
Perhaps my colleagues would like to add something to that.