In the first part of this book we have looked at the history of the What Works Centres, and heard from some of the chief executives, and other senior members, from a large number of the extant centres in the UK.

By far the most investment and activity around producing and synthesising evidence has been in the health sector (see Chapter 3), with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) sitting at the centre of this activity. NICE inspired the creation of the other centres, but each centre has developed its own way of working. It has not been a ‘case of cut and paste’ from health to other areas of social policy (Chapter 3, this volume). There has been a wide diversity of different models inspired and informed by, but not following, the NICE model (Chapter 2, this volume). All centres are dedicated to evidence synthesis, generation, transmission and adoption, but there is no rigid blueprint for the way in which they work, and they each employ somewhat different standards of evidence systems.

The centres are primarily focused on supporting the evidence needs of practitioners and service delivery organisations, but some of their outputs are useful for and aimed at policy makers too. More specifically, the What Works Centre in Wales (Chapter 8, this volume) has provided Welsh ministers with an on-demand evidence service. All of the centres can be understood as evidence intermediaries. Many see their role as not only as supplying relevant evidence to policy makers and practitioners but also as encouraging and enabling evidence use, by interpreting research findings to provide actionable evidence and sometimes offering implementation advice and support. They are complemented in their endeavours by a wide range of other initiatives aimed at encouraging evidence use.

Reflecting on the current state of the network, we can see reasons for hope for the future. Every study completed is another piece of the jigsaw in trying to improve the way that public service functions. The number of centres trying to enter the network is impressive and gives ground for hope.