Evaluation Strategy for the Early Years Commitment

The NSW Department of Education needed to measure the effectiveness and impact of their ambitious Early Years Commitment (EYC) - a $15.9 billion investment over 10 years designed to transform early childhood education and care, child development, and women's economic participation across NSW. With such a significant financial commitment and far-reaching goals, the Department needed a robust Evaluation Framework to ensure this investment would deliver its intended outcomes and provide every child in NSW with the best possible start in life.

The complexity of the EYC portfolio required an evaluation approach that could assess both collective impact and the effectiveness of individual programs within the broader commitment. The Department needed clear indicators and evaluation questions that would enable consistent measurement across different child and family groups, early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce segments, provider types, and geographical areas.

Allen + Clarke brought specialised expertise in evaluation strategy development for large-scale, complex government initiatives. Our experience in developing practical, outcomes-focused evaluation frameworks positioned us to create a strategy that would generate meaningful insights while being practical to implement.

Throughout the project, we maintained a focus on practical applications, ensuring our recommendations would enable the Department to monitor and evaluate impacts across different stakeholder groups. We paid particular attention to how the evaluation could capture effects on various child and family groups, the ECEC workforce, providers and the broader sector across different settings and geographical areas.