Research and analysis

HMRC Evaluation Framework 2026

Published 27 May 2026

HMRC’s commitment to evaluation

HMRC’s vision is for a modern tax system that raises the revenue needed to support the public finances, whilst reducing the time that people spend managing their tax affairs, and freeing businesses’ time to focus on growth.

Delivering good quality monitoring and evaluation is central to achieving HMRC’s ambitions. This means focusing our efforts where evaluation adds the greatest value, including interventions with significant costs, high potential impact on taxpayers, or innovative and untested methods. Every intervention, whether that is a policy, programme, or strategy, should be designed with evaluation in mind, starting with a clear understanding of how intended outcomes align with HMRC’s strategic objectives:

1. Close the tax gap.
2. Improve day-to-day performance and the overall customer experience.
3. Reform and modernisation of tax and customs administration.
4. Build a high-achieving organisation with a skilled and engaged workforce.
5. Contribute to government economic aims, including through delivering the UK’s Customs regime and transformation of Valuation Office.

Evaluation is a cross-government standard, underpinned by HM Treasury’s (HMT) Magenta Book and supported by the joint HMT and Cabinet Office Evaluation Task Force (ETF). These standards ensure that government decisions are informed by robust evidence and that public money delivers maximum value.

HMRC will continue to draw on the ETF’s expertise and resources, including the Evaluation Academy, to strengthen skills across the department. By building capability and sharing knowledge, we ensure monitoring and evaluation informs decisions at every level and becomes a driver of better outcomes for taxpayers.

To deliver this we will:

1. Use systematic, consistent evaluation thresholds to identify interventions that may be suitable for evaluation within HMRC, and others where monitoring is more appropriate.
2. Continue to build capability and cultivating a learning culture.
3. Develop deeper collaboration across HMRC, with other government departments, and the research community.
4. Strengthen our data and digital foundations to support analytical data.
5. Demonstrate transparency and public value by utilising the public-facing Government Evaluation Registry.

Proportionate evaluation

Understanding what works, what doesn’t, and why, provides essential evidence for HMRC to use to improve services and deliver value for taxpayers. To achieve this, we use a proportionate approach to evidence: sometimes this means monitoring progress and delivery, and other times it requires more comprehensive evaluation to assess impact and effectiveness.

Monitoring is the regular assessment of what an intervention is doing. It involves routine tracking of outputs and progress against delivery targets to provide timely data for day-to-day decision-making.

Evaluation is a structured attempt to understand the impacts of an intervention: what works, how it works, why it works, and for whom. It goes beyond tracking individual interventions and uses systematic research and analytical methods to generate deeper insights into effectiveness, value, and outcomes.

Evaluation effort is matched to the scale, complexity, and risk of the intervention. This means:

• high-cost, high-impact, or novel interventions will receive more comprehensive evaluation
• smaller or lower-risk interventions will be monitored using lighter-touch methods, while still generating useful insights
• resources are allocated efficiently, avoiding unnecessary burden and duplication, while maintaining accountability and learning

We apply evaluation thresholds to ensure that the potential evaluation requirements of every intervention are assessed appropriately without compromising quality or transparency. This enables us to prioritise evaluation where it can add the most strategic value, supporting HMRCs Strategic Objectives.

Evaluation thresholds

To focus resources effectively, HMRC will prioritise evaluations of interventions that meet the following thresholds:

• introduction of a new tax relief
• creation of a Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) programme
• interventions with significant economic impact driven by the scale of change
• interventions aimed at influencing or changing customer behaviour
• interventions with non-economic objectives, such as environmental or health outcomes
• interventions HMRC or HM Treasury may seek to extend or replicate in the future
• interventions predicting significant impact on customers or taxpayers in terms of cost, administrative burden, or compliance costs
• interventions using a novel approach
• interventions carrying reputational risk to HMRC or the Civil Service

Meeting one or more of these thresholds signals that the intervention should be considered for evaluation. Intervention owners or analytical teams may then decide there is a clear rationale to not proceed. For example, in cases where there is a strong body of evidence limiting the value of additional evaluation, or where other constraints mean that evaluation is not feasible. Teams will need to work with the Central Evaluation Team to agree their approach.

Those interventions that do not meet any thresholds, or are deemed not to require evaluation, should undertake appropriate monitoring activities to track delivery and outputs, spot issues early, and provide performance data.

Strengthening evaluation through collaboration

HMRC continues to strengthen its approach to monitoring and evaluation.  A centralised team ensures evaluation is embedded across HMRC by building capability, providing governance, and setting organisational standards. Analytical teams offer hands-on support to the wider business and help with planning and delivering evaluations.

HMT and HMRC share responsibility for effective tax and customs policy and work closely together at all stages of policy development through a Policy Partnership. Under this Partnership, HMRC conducts evaluation in agreement with HMT. Where necessary, we will also align with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) priorities, as outlined in the Accounting for the Supply-Side Effects of Policy paper. The OBR’s new framework for gathering evidence on evaluation reinforces the importance of robust analysis to assess supply-side impacts, and HMRC will continue to incorporate these principles into our approach.

We also collaborate with colleagues across government, including the Cabinet Office and departments whose work may be directly impacted by our interventions, such as those focused on health or environmental outcomes. These partnerships help refine our evaluation practices and maximise public value.

HMRC draws on analysis produced by academics, think tanks, and other organisations who use HMRC data, via the HMRC Datalab and trusted research environments, to inform our approach. By doing so, we ensure that new evaluations build on what is already known, avoid duplication, and provide valuable insight. For more information on how HMRC share data for research purposes, see the HMRC Research Future Strategy.   

Embedding evaluation in digital and data investments

High-quality data is essential for effective evaluation. To deliver meaningful insights, investment in data systems must consider analytical requirements and how data will be used throughout HMRC.

However, technology alone does not guarantee success. How we use data, and the skills and learning that support this, are critical to achieving the full benefits of these programmes. That is why evaluation must look beyond systems and processes to consider the human impact. We need to understand whether staff have the right skills, whether new tools are being used effectively, and how these changes influence behaviour and outcomes.

Evaluating digital and AI approaches presents unique challenges. While these investments can be costly, their benefits are not always immediately visible to customers. It is therefore essential that these investments remain a top priority, both for evaluation and across the department. HMRC will continue to review our approach and draw on specialist guidance, such as the Guidance on the Impact Evaluation of AI Interventions, to ensure we adopt best practice in all AI and digital evaluation.

Our approach to digital and data investments

HMRC is committed to ensuring that investment in our digital and data capability delivers measurable value and impact. Digital interventions and novel technologies can be a significant investment, so our approach focuses on testing, learning, and adapting. We are committed to evaluating the investments which are designed to deliver HMRC’s Enterprise Data Strategy, aligning with the Government’s Digital and Data Roadmap and the future vision in HMRC’s Transformation Roadmap. This means:

• embedding robust evaluation plans from the start — to track progress, assess benefits early and identify where adjustments are needed
• iterating and improving — using a test-and-learn approach to make evidence-based decisions about what works and what doesn’t to reduce risk and maximise value
• focussing on capability and usability — to assess how well people can use new tools and data

This approach improves the way we use digital and data, enabling HMRC to operate more efficiently and productively.

Building evaluation skills and managing knowledge

Robust evaluation depends on people as much as processes. Government guidance, including HMT’s Magenta Book, highlights that evaluation is most effective when:

• skills are widely distributed, not concentrated in specialist teams
• policy and delivery professionals understand evaluation principles so they can commission, interpret, and apply findings
• knowledge is captured and shared, enabling learning across programmes and avoiding duplication

 HMRC’s ambition to embed evaluation throughout the department requires strong skills and effective knowledge management.

Since 2020 we have made important progress in strengthening evaluation capability across the department. We have embedded Magenta Book principles into guidance, supported colleagues through training and awareness sessions, and begun integrating evaluation plans into programme design. These steps have helped raise the profile of evaluation and improve how evidence informs decision-making.

Building on the progress we have made, HMRC will:

• deepen evaluation skills across roles — extending capability building work beyond analysts to policy, strategy and operational teams
• continue to educate colleagues as informed customers of evaluation — ensuring they know what good evaluation looks like, how to ask the right questions, and how to use evidence effectively
• strengthen knowledge management — further improve systems for capturing and sharing evaluation findings across interventions
• invest in additional training and development — drawing on cross-government resources such as the ETF’s Evaluation Academy and Magenta Book guidance

By further embedding skills and knowledge management into our approach, HMRC ensures that evaluation is not just a technical exercise but a driver of continuous improvement and smarter decision-making.

Publication and transparency

As set out in the HMRC annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, we are committed to increasing transparency and building public trust by sharing findings from our evaluations.

HMRC intends to handle the publication of final evaluation reports in the same way we handle outputs from the HMRC external research programme and will aim to follow Government Social Research (GSR) protocol for publication. As per the Publication Principles found in the protocol, HMRC is not expected to publish evaluations on those occasions when publication would not be in the public interest. For more information, see the FoI guidance.

Treating evaluation with the same discipline as research means:

• planning for publication from the outset
• engaging with GSR protocols and standards
• communicating findings clearly and accessibly

In 2024, the ETF launched the Evaluation Registry as part of the Government’s continued drive to put evaluation at the heart of its decision-making process and improve the quality and quantity of government evaluations. HMRC will continue to register planned evaluations of high cost, high impact, or novel interventions on the Evaluation Registry.  We are committed to making evaluation outputs visible and impactful.

Next steps

We will continue to build on the progress already made to embed evaluations and evaluation thresholds into HMRC’s ways of working. Our priorities include:

• strengthening governance across programmes, strategies, and policies to ensure evaluation is recognised as a key requirement
• building capability across the department so that teams have the skills and confidence to design and deliver robust evaluations
• improving quality by ensuring our most impactful work is supported by appropriate analytical expertise
• communicating the benefits of evaluation positively throughout the organisation to foster a culture that values evidence-based decision-making
• engaging senior leaders to ensure they understand the benefits of evaluation and the importance of their role in championing it

We will measure success in embedding the framework through regular progress reviews. Key indicators will include:

• growth in the number of planned evaluations
• increased commitment to evaluation at key decision points
• a higher proportion of interventions with robust evaluation plans in place

In addition, we will monitor perceptions of evaluation capability and its importance internally, and the extent to which it is embedded within governance structures. In the long term we would aim to see increases in how evaluation evidence is used within planning and decision making within HMRC.