The evaluator: inquisitor,comrade or spy?

This article uses ideas and material which is also incorporated in my distance learning package, Monitoring and Evaluation of Local Economic Development , Local Government Trai Board, 1987.

Figures from CIPFA Planning and Development Statistics, 1986–7 Estimates, SIS 21.87, combining capital and gross revenue spending on “Economic Development and Promotion”.

See also Stern Elliot “Evaluation Strategies for Local Economic and Employment Development”, Tavistock Institute, 1987.

See Tricker Mike Bovaird Tony Martin Steve “Evaluation of local economic development initiatives: some examples of practice within urban and rural development agencies”, Public Sector Management Research Unit, University of Aston, 1987.

Robinson Fred Wren Colin Goddard John Economic Development Policies: An Evaluative Study of the Newcastle Metropolitan Region , Oxford, 1987. The key evaluative conclusions are also given in Fred Robinson and Colin Wren “The input of urban and regional policy on economic development: a case study of the Newcastle Metropolitan Region” Local Government Studies 13,3 49–62; and Colin Wren “The relative effects of local authority financial assistance polices” Urban Studies 24,4, 268–278.

Armstrong Harvey , “Variations in the local impact of District Council-assisted small manufacturing firms”, Local Government Studies, forthcoming, 1988.

See Stern , op. cit. , and Room Graham Cross-National Innovation in Social Policy: European Perspectives on the Evaluation of Action-Research, Macmillan, 1986, especially pp. 23–7.

Rosenberg David Power, Professionals and Politics: British Local Government and Financial Stress, Manchester University Press, forthcoming.