Directorates
·	Director General's Office
·	Data Development
·	Strategic Evaluations
·	Partnership and Continuous Evaluations
Publications
·	Evaluation Reports
·	Evaluation Briefs
·	Labour Market Development Agreement Series
·	Lessons Learned Series
·	Evaluation Tool Kit Series
·	Evaluation Forum Newsletter
·	From Theory To Practice

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment is pleased to receive the Evaluation of the Investing in People Initiative - Year Two. We support the recommendations in the report and, where possible, will act on them to improve future programs. We agree with the findings that community involvement and interagency cooperation are key to creating successful, relevant programs for social assistance recipients. We are working with communities to increase control of programs at the local level.

Many of the lessons learned from Investing in People are already being incorporated into the Income Support program and other departmental initiatives. Some of these changes directly address concerns raised in the report. For example:

• much of Investing in People funding has been regionalized, to bring program decision making closer to communities; child care subsidies have also been regionalized;
• a management information system is being developed which will track clients' progress in programs and provide information useful for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of programs; and
• a career development certificate is being offered for adult educators and income support workers to familiarize community staff with the field of career development and career development skills.

We believe that the research contained in this document is very valuable, and lays the groundwork for further research in important areas. For example, we must better determine the long term costs and benefits of educational programming for social assistance recipients beyond a social assistance expenditure reduction model.

As a Department, we recognize the necessity of providing programs that increase productive choices for individuals on Social Assistance. As a result, we committed to supporting Investing in People projects for an additional two year period, although the federal Strategic Initiatives contribution from the first two years has ceased.

Although finalizing the report was a lengthy process, we are pleased that the evaluation indicates that Investing in People projects have had positive impacts on individuals and communities. The executive summary will be forwarded to all the IIP stakeholders at the community and regional level, and we hope that the findings will be useful to all our partners who are designing and delivering educational programs.