Test, Learn and Grow
At the Government Outcomes Lab, we're exploring whether test-and-learn approaches support more effective and efficient public service reform. As the independent learning and evaluation partner for the Cabinet Office–led Test, Learn, Grow (TLG) programme, our research examines how iterative, adaptative, and learning-oriented policymaking practices unfold in practice, and whether they lead to improved outcomes for people and communities.
Test, Learn, Grow represents a deliberate shift away from fully specified, top-down policy solutions. Instead, the Programme tests a way of working that emphasises enhanced local discretion, collaboration between different levels of government, user-centred design, and real-time learning.
The Programme aims to reimagine public service delivery across ten local authorities in England through iterative cycles of trial and adaptation, delivered by cross-disciplinary “Accelerator” teams drawn from central and local government, as well as other place-based partners, such as voluntary communities and social enterprises. The 'Grow' strand of the programme is focused on reforming central government processes and governance arrangements that often constrain adaptive policy-making and public service delivery.
Test, Learn, Grow is delivered through close collaboration between central government, delivery partners, and place-based teams. Led by the Cabinet Office, the programme convenes departments and partners to support local experimentation and learning. Public Digital works alongside local Accelerator teams to embed test-and-learn ways of working in practice, while New Local contributes expertise on place-based reform, peer learning, and sense-making across local government contexts.
As the independent learning and evaluation partner, GO Lab’s role is to generate robust, independent evidence about whether and how this model of reform works, under what conditions, and for whom. The evaluation is designed to balance proximity to delivery with analytical independence, allowing us to observe and assess adaptive practice as it evolves while maintaining methodological rigour.
Our evaluation takes a multi-level, mixed-methods approach. At the Accelerator level, we study how test-and-learn approaches are adopted in practice across a diverse portfolio of policy areas and places, and where feasible, assess their impact and value for investment. At the meso-level, we focus on comparative, cross-cutting analysis, focusing on patterns in organisational routines and ways of working across all Accelerators over time. At the programme level, we examine how learning from Accelerators is synthesised, acted upon, and embedded within central government systems.
By evaluating both the "ways of working" and the interventions being tested, this project seeks to inform future decisions about public sector reform. It aims to provide policymakers, practitioners, and researchers with credible evidence on the conditions under which test-and-learn approaches can deliver meaningful, scalable improvements while also surfacing the tensions such approaches create for accountability, assurance, and value for money in government.
