Creating your framework

Decide your overall approach

You should begin by deciding how you will use your outcomes framework, the type of framework you want and who you will involve in developing it.

Decide who you need to provide with evidence

Think about who you need to provide evidence to about the contribution of archives to local outcomes.

For example, is it commissioners of specific services such as children’s services or health, councillors or Board members who are interested in the ‘big picture’? Perhaps it’s colleagues in another department such as adult social care or an external organisation or funding body?

Choose to create either a generic framework or theme-based framework(s)

Think about how you will use your outcomes framework to help you decide which approach to take.

Use a generic framework to give a broad overview of how your archive contributes to local priorities and covers a number of policy themes. This is also a good approach as part of a service review, or in preparing for Archive Accreditation, as it will capture the totality of your contribution.

Or develop a theme-based framework to show in more detail the contribution archives make to outcomes under one or more specific policy themes, such as health and wellbeing, stronger and safer communities or learning and education. They will be most useful if you want to influence decision makers or potential partners in another sector or service area.

Plan who will lead and be involved in the process

Decide who to involve in developing your framework and how you will manage it. Creating the framework will need some dedicated time. Who will lead the process? Will the framework be developed as part of a team meeting or separate outcomes planning session? You may decide to task an individual or small project group.

If you work in a local authority you may decide to draft the framework through a session involving councillors and officers from different services or by involving service commissioners. Think about whether or how to involve your corporate policy and performance unit, scrutiny boards and representatives from relevant local strategic partnerships for example.

If you work for other organisations you may want to involve strategic decision-makers in developing your framework e.g. the Vice Chancellor, departmental heads, directors, or Board of Trustees.

Also consider whether you want to focus solely on the work of your service or whether it would be beneficial to work with others.

For example, if you are part of a broader cultural service, then it may be appropriate to develop a team framework.

You may want to involve external partners from voluntary organisations such as community archives or residents’ associations, to encourage them to adopt the framework or you may need them to help provide evidence and data.

Once you have decided which approach will be of most use, follow the remaining stages to develop your outcomes framework. You will need to repeat them for each policy area if you are creating more than one theme-based framework.

Create and outcomes triangle and logic model

The outcomes triangle gives an overview of how archives contribute to local priorities, either overall or to a specific policy theme such as learning and education. It shows the different levels of outcome that archives can contribute towards.

The logic model illustrates the main links between service activities and local outcomes. It shows understanding of the benefits of archives to individuals, communities and places, and how these in turn contribute to the achievement of intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes.

Decide how to capture your thinking and decisions

Find a way to capture your thinking and decisions from each step as you go, for example on flip charts or ‘post-it’ notes, into a Word document or directly into the outcomes triangle and logic model templates that are available to download.

Outcomes triangle template (insert blank word document template)

Logic model template (insert blank PowerPoint template)

List your overarching and intermediate outcomes

Using the triangle template, start by identifying the overarching strategic outcomes you need to demonstrate that archives contribute towards for your chosen policy theme (or for several policy themes if you are creating a generic framework). Then identify your intermediate outcomes. Use your local strategic plan, vision statements, partnership agreements, corporate plan, other strategic or partnership documents.

You can use the examples on this page to give you ideas

Check out ‘what to include’ for definitions of overarching strategic outcomes, intermediate outcomes and service outcomes

List your service outcomes

Now list your service outcomes. Use your strategy, organisation business plan, department or service plans, action plans, partnership or funding agreements. You can also use the examples on this website for ideas.

List the activities your archive provides or supports

Transfer the different levels of outcome that archives contribute toward onto the logic model template. Now identify and group the activities you provide or support. For example, facilities, events, development and outreach work or volunteering opportunities. This does not need to be very detailed unless it is useful to you to do it that way.

Identify the benefits of delivering your service outcomes and the contribution to intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes

List the benefits to individuals, communities or places if you achieve your service outcomes. Then look at your local intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes and identify how or why each service outcome and the benefits contribute.

For example, if a service outcome is to get more older people involved in volunteering in archives and this is achieved, one of the benefits might be an increased understanding of local services and community issues among individual older people. This in turn will contribute to an intermediate outcome of ‘more older people playing a full part in their local community as active citizens’ and to an overarching strategic outcome that ‘older people are more socially and mentally active’.

Think about where the strongest connections might be and what local or national evidence is available to support them. Use the logic model examples to give you ideas.

Identify and challenge your assumptions about the links between activities and service outcomes

Think about how the activities you provide or support lead to the service outcomes being achieved. Do all the activities clearly contribute to the desired service outcomes? Look at all your activities and all your service outcomes in turn. Challenge the robustness of your assumptions. Do you know of any local or national evidence to demonstrate the links?

Complete your outcomes triangle and logic model

Use the lists you have developed to create your final version of an outcomes triangle and logic model. Your logic model could be in table or list form or in a diagram (as shown in the examples). If you are creating a logic model diagram, use arrows to illustrate connections between activities, outcomes and benefits. Don’t try to connect everything, be pragmatic and only draw lines between those that best illustrate the case you want to make and where the most robust evidence is available.

Repeat these steps if you are developing an outcomes framework for a number of themes.

Review the evidence

The evidence section of the framework underpins the outcomes triangle and logic model. It lists the sources of evidence that together best demonstrate the contribution of archives to the outcomes. You should use local evidence, such as research studies, evaluations, surveys and case studies, to support your outcomes triangle and logic model.

You can back this up with evidence from national or international sources. Where possible evidence the different levels of outcome and the assumptions linking them together

Decide how to capture your thinking and decisions

Find a way to capture your thinking and decisions from each step. Use the downloadable evidence template if it helps.

Evidence template (insert word document template)

List the service outcomes and benefits, and the intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes

Take the service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes from your logic model. Also list the benefits you have identified as arising from the achievement of the service outcomes.

Identify sources of local and national evidence

Review any local quantitative or qualitative data you have available, for example data from research studies, evaluations, and case studies.

Review the national and international evidence. Look at the examples provided on this website in the evidence sections for each policy theme.

Quantitative data will help you to evidence how often things occur among which segments of your user groups. For example, data might be drawn from questionnaires, interviews or surveys with closed or multiple choice questions.

Qualitative data will contribute towards a more detailed picture and may be in the form of case studies linked to a specific category of user or may represent a broad cross section of users.

Think about how well the evidence you have gathered supports the stated benefits and the outcomes that archives contribute towards. How relevant, recent and robust is it? List any local evidence you think supports the service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes you have identified.

Review gaps in your evidence

Review the evidence you have listed for all the benefits and outcomes in your logic model. Is there enough evidence to back up the contribution of archives to each benefit and outcome? If evidence is missing or weak, can you or a partner collect new data or commission new research to get that evidence?

Remove any benefits or outcomes where you don’t have enough evidence to demonstrate the contribution of archives and where you won’t be able to obtain additional evidence in the near future.

If you are developing an outcomes framework for a number of policy themes, repeat these steps for each theme.

Stage four: select your performance indicators (link to stage four webpage)

Select your performance indicators

The set of performance indicators (PIs) is how you measure the contribution of archives to local outcomes. You should identify a small number of PIs for each level of outcome (service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcome levels), as well as service output indicators.

Draw on available data from existing sources within your council, organisation and elsewhere wherever possible.

Decide how to capture your thinking and decisions

Find a way to capture your thinking and decisions from each step. Use the downloadable PIs template if it helps.

Performance indicators template (insert word document template)

List the service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes

Take the service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes from your logic model. Also look at the benefits you have identified as arising from the achievement of the service outcomes.

Select a basket of performance indicators

Identify a small number of PIs that you think will help measure the contribution of archives for each level of outcome (service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcome levels), as well as service output indicators.

The PIs for the overarching strategic outcomes should be high-level non-archives indicators that you want to demonstrate, and can evidence, archives contribute towards.

The PIs for the intermediate outcomes should include measures that reflect the specific contribution of archives to those outcomes. However, they may also include some non-archives measures that are short to medium-term proxy measures for the overarching strategic outcomes.

The PIs for the service outcomes and outputs will be measures that are specific to archives. Look at the output and outcome indicators your organisation and partners are currently using and the examples provided on this website to help you.

Your PIs should provide a mix of outcome-focused quantitative and qualitative data and, alongside existing management information that will also enable you to demonstrate efficiency and productivity.

Challenge the effectiveness of each performance indicator

Challenge the effectiveness of the indicators. Do the performance indicators you have selected show that you are delivering your service outcomes? Will they help you demonstrate the benefits of archives shown in your logic model? Do they make a meaningful contribution to demonstrating the contribution of archives to the intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes?

Remove any PIs you don’t think are effective.

Consider the data source

The PIs need to be populated with data. Consider whether there is an existing local or national data source you can use, or if a new approach is necessary. Is it relatively easy and cost effective to collect the data year-on-year? Are there simple changes that could be made to existing data collection methodologies to improve the data you have, for example, by adding questions to an existing survey? Do you want to and have the resources to commission new data collection methodologies?

Have a look at our ‘data tools and sources’ page for suggestions of available data sources

Remove any PIs where you think the data will be too expensive or difficult to collect.

Finalise your performance indicators

Produce your final list of PIs and data sources.

You may need to break down the PIs and data further to reflect local priorities, for example, by geographic area or target wards or by specific groups, such as different age groups or disadvantaged or vulnerable groups.

Finalise and use your framework

Finalising

After completing stages one to four, revisit each part of your outcomes framework.

Check for consistency and make sure the four parts of the framework link together.

Challenge whether you have robust evidence to support all the service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes and the benefits you identified in your logic model.

Look at the examples on this website to identify any gaps in your approach or your framework.

Bring together your final archives outcomes framework consisting of one or more outcomes triangle, logic model, evidence list and set of performance indicators.

Develop and implement a plan for communicating your framework

Think back to why you wanted to create your framework. Decide who you want to share it with internally within your own department, among officers and councillors or board members, and externally. For more information on developing communications to promote your service see Effective Communications: Raising the profile of your archive service.

Think about what you need to share with them. Is it the whole framework or just parts of it? For example, councillors might find the overview given by the outcomes triangle helpful, whereas service commissioners might value the logic model showing the links between what you do, the benefits and the intermediate or overarching strategic outcomes.

Encourage others to develop an outcomes framework

Talk to your key partners and explore whether they might find it helpful to adopt the same or a similar outcomes framework.

Plan a review of your framework

Review your framework at least once a year to ensure it is still relevant and focused on the right priorities.

Have a look at these examples outcomes

This section signposts you to sources of data that may help populate your performance indicators and evidence lists and guidance on how to collect robust data on the contribution of archives to outcomes.

• Archives & Records Association, UK & Ireland hosts useful publications, sector surveys and reports, including the Survey of Visitors to UK Archives 2019 and Distance Enquiry Survey Benchmarking Report 2021 and the impact of volunteering in archives. There is also a service resilience indicator, which aims to provide a quick method of assessing the resilience of an archive and/or records management service. The indicator is designed as a generic tool to be suitable for use across services of all types and sizes.
• The National Archives has published the results of the Local Authority Archive Benchmarking Exercise. This gives archive services across the country a chance to compare and contrast with other services, with data available on subjects such as digital holdings and exhibition attendance. The exercise has replaced the annual Archive Services Statistics Survey run by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). Most of the questions in the benchmarking exercise remained unchanged from the CIPFA abbreviated survey. The National Archives also hosts a range of research and evaluation reports of completed projects that can also be used to help archives demonstrate their value. In addition, Plugged In, Powered Up supports digital preservation, discoverability and access, and impact. The online tool DiAGRAM can help you to manage the risks to your digital collections.
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Participation Survey is a continuous push to web survey of adults aged 16 and over in England. Fieldwork started in October 2021 and this is a main evidence source for DCMS and its sectors by providing statistically representative national estimates of adult engagement. Amongst the survey questions, respondents are asked about their engagement with digital heritage and a breakdown of responses is provided that indicates whether they have researched local history online or viewed documents from an archive in England online. There are also useful ad hoc statistical releases on topics such as adult digital engagement with digital heritage, and adult volunteering in the heritage sector.
• Archive Service Accreditation includes lots of useful advice, in particular within Section 3 Stakeholders and their Experience. It aligns with developing an outcomes framework as you are encouraged to explore how your service fits into the wider organisation and where your practices work well or could be improved across the different areas.