About
Being a What Works Centre
We act as an interface between evidence and improvement to policy and practice.
As the What Works Centre for youth employment, our role is to ensure robust evidence shapes decision-making.
What is the What Works Network?
The What Works Network was launched by the UK Government in 2013.
Its purpose is to ensure that the development of public services is informed by the best available evidence on what works.
More information about what it means to be a member of the What Works Network is available from the Evaluation Task Force, which serves as the secretariat for the Network.
Our accreditation as a What Works Centre speaks to the authority and rigour of our evidence, as well as its practicality and accessibility for use by policymakers, funders, and employers, who act as our levers of change in the system.
Our approach to evaluation
What Works is based on the principle that good decision-making should be informed by the best available evidence.
If evidence is not available, decision-makers should use high-quality methods to find out what works.
To do this, our evaluations focus on three key areas of youth employment:
- Understanding programmes and services that support young people towards and into good work
- Understanding employer approaches to recruiting and retaining young people
- Understanding places and systems, local policies and conditions affecting youth employment
Our approach builds on the Treasury’s Magenta Book, guided by realist insights and underpinned by programme theory so that at every opportunity, we can start to understand the causal drivers of change and outcomes.
We follow six core principles:
Independence
Rigour
Practicality
Accessibility
Capacity building
Transparency
Our approach to evidence translation
Sharing findings in an accessible way
Supporting policymakers, commissioners and practitioners to use these findings to inform their decisions.
