March 2021 – We are extremely sad to announce that our dear friend and colleague Dr Dione Hills has died following a sudden and short illness. You can read the obituary that The Tavistock Institute have written for her here.
After eight years at the Department of Health, in 1986 Dione joined a team at the Tavistock Institute team exploring innovative approaches to evaluation design, particularly for large, complex, programme evaluations. Her evaluation work spans a number of sectors, including health, community development, social care, transport and the environment. As well as designing and delivering evaluations, she also provides training in evaluation methods and skills, which includes training in use of theory of change approaches, and reflective practice.
Her methodological work includes a guidance on evaluating community based health interventions, on the assessment of public value and, for the Department for Transport, on choosing the best evaluation approach for impact evaluations, and on logic mapping. Her environmental work has included an evaluation of a housing association’s energy efficiency programme for tenants, synthesis of data related to smart meters, and currently (as peer reviewer) contributes to DECC’s evaluations of the Electricity Demand Reduction pilot (EDR) and transitional arrangements for demand side response (DSR).
As a UK Evaluation Society Council member, Dione sits on two working groups: one on the development of evaluation training, and one currently piloting ‘Voluntary Evaluator Peer Review’ (VEPR), a new professional development process.
