Government, Evaluation and Change

The Thatcher government has made radical attempts to control and change the public sector. It has tried to create a new culture of management based on values of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. One of its strategies has been to give evaluation a new and higher profile in the public arena. "Government, Evaluation and Change" examines evaluation through detailed accounts of four kinds of institutions. These include the Audit Commission, created 1982 to extend local government audit to incorporate the assessment and promotion of good management, management consultants used by central government departments, the Social Services Inspectorate in transition from a professional social work advisory service to a more managerially oriented inspectorate, and the Health Advisory Service, created in an earlier era when the norms of professional peer review were dominant. The author explores how far government's hopes that "hard" managerial values would be employed in the evaluation of the public sector were realized in the institutions examined. It analyzes how the links between the knowledge, traditions, values and forms of authority affect the patterns of influence and change that emerge. The book is based on research funded by the ESRC, as a part of its initiative on management in government, and by the Department of Health and the King's Fund. Henkel's other publications include co-authorship of "DHSS Research Units: the Process of Review", "Government and Research", "Higher Education and the Preparation for Work" and "The Health Advisory Service: An Evaluation".