What is it about?
This article examines the major programme of research on the 'Local Government Modernisation Agenda' which was funded by the UK's Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It argues that this modernisation agenda heralded a new approach to government-funded research which sought to address some of the weakness of previous evaluations. In particular it involved longer-term studies than had been conducted in the past and an attempt to achieve a much greater degree of collaboration between research teams. It was also trying to ensure effective application of the learning derived from evaluations. This new approach raised a number of practical and methodological problems, including in particular the need for effective data sharing among research teams and with other agencies, in order to ensure that the overall research programme couldl provide useful insights that would help to inform current and future policy and practice at both national and local levels.
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Why is it important?
It is not surprising that there is a strong demand among central government policy makers for more 'joined up' evaluation. Such an approach also ought to make a lot of sense for local authority practitioners, especially if it reduces the number of separate requests for data and access to documents and personnel that they receive over the next decade. It is clear, however, that developing a more integrated approach presents formidable challenges. In some cases these are variants of problems associated with individual programme evaluations. However, multiple agency, multiple objective programmes, such as the Local Government Modernisation Agenda, also presented new challenges. Baselines were 'ragged' because initiatives had been implemented at different times. Programme objectives and programme theory were more difficult to specify and there were likely to be difficulties co-ordinating research instruments and data collection and analysis between the meta-evaluation and evaluations of individual elements of the LGMA
Perspectives
The approach outlined in this paper highlights a way forward in designing and implementingmore 'joined up' evaluations of this kind. While, in most areas, our suggestions are tentative, we believe that they are likely to raise the probability of such ambitious evaluations being successful and that the alternative - a whole series of potentially limp and unconvincing partial evaluations - is undesirable. However, it is clear that such an evaluation can only proceed within a genuine partnership framework involving greater collaboration between evaluation teams, between evaluators and local authorities and, ideally, between Whitehall departments and local government.
Professor Tony Bovaird
University of Birmingham
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This page is a summary of: Evaluating Public Management Reform: Designing a'Joined Up' Approach to Researching the Local Government Modernisation Agenda, Local Government Studies, December 2003, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03003930308559387.
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