What is an evidence base and why is it important to have one?

You may already have an impression of accessibility priorities in your area. Involving partners in the accessibility planning process will help to improve that understanding. Even so, your knowledge of the issues may not be complete; it could be that they’re not well documented or that not everyone has a common understanding as to what exactly the issues are. (This aspect is discussed further in the section about ‘Managing Multiple Views' in Chapter 2 about ‘Identifying problems and priorities’.) This is where an evidence base comes in.

An evidence base is a way of formalising and confirming key issues and describing them in a clear, consistent and objective manner. It should bring together information and analysis from various sources to enable you to build your understanding of the issues and support decision-making. This includes both qualitative and quantitative evidence, and may be presented in the form of tables, figures, mapping or simple textual descriptions.

If you want to work jointly with other agencies and people then the evidence base is the foundation from which consensus is built. Without evidence conflicting points of view can’t easily be resolved. In effect, the evidence is the key to ‘Making the Connections’.

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