Investigations by a British think tank into why the the country’s education system has been so ready to throw money at unproven behavioral programs has found little fault with schools or service designing charities – just a lack of coordinated investment in selection and evaluation know-how.

The DEMOS study focused on schools’ efforts to tackle educational disengagement before it mutates into persistent truancy and antisocial behavior.

Authors Sonia Sodha and Silvia Guglielmi’s analysis of the underlying weaknesses in the commissioning process began in the wake of an exposé in 2008 by Guardian Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre and others of the frailties of the US-made Brain Gym program.

At the time, Brain Gym was being widely implemented in the UK schools system – just one of many similarly well intentioned but unevaluated attempts to broaden the social and emotional learning curriculum. See: Nice idea – shame about the brain buttons and Rock? Water? Strike a Light!.

Other less notorious examples discussed in A Stitch in Time include the Parents Support Advisor scheme, which was scaled up and rolled out nationally without thorough consideration of its purpose or definition of the advisers’ role.

The DEMOS authors argue in their report that British attitudes to learning and the enjoyment of learning compare poorly to other countries in the developed world.

They say that commissioning remedial initiatives is a highly expert job demanding a diverse range of skill sets. School commissioners, such as head teachers and deputy heads, and even local authorities, lack the resources and capacity to manage the process.

The variable extent to which local authorities are delegating commissioning responsibilities to schools causes more complications, DEMOS says. Differences in practice from area to area make it difficult for program-designing charities to navigate the system.

Charities generally find selling directly to schools more effective than selling to local authorities. Schools are viewed as being better placed to understand community needs; local authorities are regarded as being “too far removed”.

Despite this, the researchers were able to find little research into the commissioning function of schools or anything in the way of a national database of approved programs to substantiate good choices.

For their part, although the onus is on them to evaluate their own work, charities do not receive support or training. Smaller charities lack the necessary resources and their staff are generally unskilled in evaluation methods.

But Sodha and Guglielmi say that does not mean charities fight shy of the idea of evaluation. They would welcome support for self-evaluation, and are amenable to an Ofsted-like independent inspecting body and to the introduction of a kitemark system of quality guarantee.

They propose standardizing contracts across the public sector to establish who is doing the commissioning in different areas while developing a better understanding of how and why such strategic decisions are made.

And they say there is an urgent need to develop a sustainable framework providing charities with the support needed to self-evaluate their services and to introduce a national database of evidence based initiatives.

They say that the focus should be on “making quality control and evaluation quicker, easier and more consistent”.