The Department concedes there is further to go to embed the culture of evaluation it wants to see in children’s social care. The Department and the sector have learned that quality evaluation is expensive and can take a long time to do.19 However one evaluation provider told us that robust and rigorous evaluations are not yet routine in children’s social care, with many practitioners opposing the more robust techniques such as randomisation on principle.20 Following the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children’s 9 C&AG’s Report para 3.1 10 C&AG’s Report paras 18, 20 11 C&AG’s Report Figure 2 12 C&AG’s Report para 2.4 13 Qq 15, 53 14 Q 15 15 Q 42 16 Q 31 17 Q 42 18 EPC0004 p.3 19 Qq 31, 43 20 EPC0001 p.2 10 Evaluating innovation projects in children’s social care Social Care (the Care Review), What Works for Children’s Social Care and the Early Intervention Foundation have announced they will merge. The Department sees this as an opportunity to strengthen methodologies and evidence standards, and its ability to embed evaluation more effectively across children’s social care.21 Understanding impact