Matthew brings 

• over 30 years of experience in public policy / services research and evaluation across government, research consultancies, charities and 'what works' organisations. 

• a track record of successfully helping teams navigate evaluation in complex, evolving programmes with high levels of repeat business. 

• a MSc in Advanced Social Research and Statistics and extensive practice based knowledge of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis.

• experience of how evaluation actually works inside government having held senior research and evaluation roles in two central government departments.

• deep experience of evaluation delivery - Matthew has led or made a significant contribution to around 100 evaluations and research projects.

• wide ranging experience of doing research and evaluation in different sectors - including children and adults social care, housing, health services, arts and health, communities, energy and net zero, nature and farming, youth violence, regional economic development. 

• deep knowledge, skills and experience in the application of a wide range of evaluation designs and methods from RCTs, Quasi-Experimental Designs, Theory Based Methods for impact evaluation through to developmental and formative methods for process evaluationand qualitative comparative approaches.  

• established evaluation leadership - having developed and published a number of innovative evaluation tools to support evaluation planning and delivery.

• clear understanding of how to deliver meaningful and actionable evaluation even in some of the most challenging policy and programme contexts.

• access to a network of independent evaluation consultants - he established a LinkedIn group in 2025 to support learning and development and business collaboration amongst UK based sole traders and micro businesses - there are now 100 members of the group

• established relationship with specialists in complexity in evaluation (Matt is an associate with CECAN).