Evaluating Stoptober
Thursday, October 1, 2020 at 16:32 Stoptober, the annual quit smoking campaign, starts today.
According to Public Health England the campaign has prompted two million smokers to try to quit since it was launched in 2012.
I've no idea how they came up with this estimate but it's the usual and rather convenient round number.
It's also very different from saying that two million people have actually quit as a result of Stoptober, but I've long since given up trying to work out how PHE evaluates the 'success' of this annual stop smoking campaign.
In fact, having pursued PHE on the matter for several years, I confess I got bored and let them off the hook.
If you're interested however here are some links to previous posts I have written on the subject:
Stoptober’s ‘growing success’ explained (October 1, 2018)
At last! The Stoptober 2016 campaign evaluation report (October 31, 2017)
Stoptober 2017 limps on and we're still waiting for the 2016 evaluation (October 16, 2017)
Stoptober: the mystery of the missing evaluation (October 1, 2017)
Questions for Public Health England concerning Stoptober 2016 (November 3, 2016)
Stoptober and the law of diminishing returns (September 13, 2016)
Stoptober is proof that comedy isn't the new rock 'n' roll (October 31, 2015)
A couple of things are worth mentioning.
The budget for Stoptober has varied over the years but apart from one year when, off the top of my head, it was cut to around £400,000, it has more recently been in the region of £1m to £1.2m.
Scarily, thanks to the government's munificent response to Covid-19, £1m will never again sound like a lot of money to government officials, although it's fair to say that that ship sailed a long time ago.
It's still taxpayers' money though and worthy of close scrutiny.
Indeed, if it wasn't for Forest submitting FOI requests asking to see Stoptober campaign evaluations, I wonder if they would ever have been available to the public.
At one point I seriously began to think PHE was taking the piss. Why, for example, does it take twelve months for a campaign evaluation to appear?
How does that make sense? Surely you need to review, evaluate and learn from the most recent campaign before you can start developing the next one?
If the evaluation reports were available internally earlier, why the long delay before they were made available to the public?
You can if you wish read the campaign evaluations for yourself – they are available here on the government website.
However, although Stoptober was launched in 2012 there are only three evaluation reports available online – for 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Readers may recall that PHE eventually published the 2016 evaluation on October 26, 2017, but only after I had written to them twice – in November 2016 and again in August 2017 – requesting a "full evaluation of the outcome of Stoptober 2016".
It begs the question: had I not done so would a single evaluation report ever have seen the light of day?
Meanwhile we patiently await publication of the 2019 campaign evaluation. If recent history is our guide, I expect it to be published towards the end of this month, a full year after the end of the 2019 campaign.
Why it takes so long remains a mystery only PHE can explain.
'Celebrities' of course are rarely shy of promoting Stoptober and so it proved in 2015 when the campaign was supported by no fewer than four comedians – Al Murray, Rhod Gilbert, Shappi Khorsandi and Bill Bailey – who were later revealed by the Daily Mail to have cost the taxpayer £200,000. Fancy that!
Since then – as a result, perhaps, of the subsequent outcry – the celebrity budget has been cut significantly. In 2018 an FOI submitted by Forest revealed that TV presenter Jeremy Kyle had been paid a paltry £20,000 for his efforts.
I'm not aware of any celebrities, even minor ones, being involved last year (or perhaps I wasn't paying attention), but this year two of the 'human-interest case studies' will involve TV presenter Kate Thornton and DJ Scott Mills 'who are both quitting smoking to coincide with the campaign'.
Neither are household names so I suspect their fees – if any – will be quite small (I'll endeavour to find out), so the question is: where is the rest of the budget going?
This year, according to Campaign (Stoptober campaign goes back to basics as pandemic prompts smokers to quit), 'Some £1m is being spent on this year’s campaign, which is targeting smokers aged 35-60, as well as those in the 18-34 age group, because there has been a rise in smoking among this demographic during the pandemic.'
Anyway, given the impending closure of Public Health England, my interest in Stoptober has once again been aroused so last week I sent PHE this Freedom of Information requesting the evaluation report for Stoptober 2019 (still not published), including the full and final costs; and the projected date for the publication of the Stoptober 2020 campaign evaluation.
I would be surprised if very much light is shed on the matter but I'll keep you posted.
Update: Perhaps the organisers were listening to my earlier criticism because, according to the 2018 evaluation:
Each year, the campaign is fully evaluated internally, and learnings are applied to the following year's campaign.
That being the case, why are the evaluation reports kept from the public for twelve months and only appear after the following year’s campaign has finished?
Reader Comments (3)
Like all things in the propaganda world of the antismoker industry, the magical figure is pulled from the air. They simply make it up for greatest effect usually with the aim of securing more funding for their own vested interests.
It's the biggest scam this century in my opinion.
Well in all honesty I have never even bothered to read or listen to any stoptober nonsense. I just carry on as normal during October and enjoy every fag I smoke
The only thing that should end the 'Stoptober' is the relentless antismoking propaganda disseminated by extremist lifestyle controllers and funded by the public purse..