Is Local Authority Economic Intervention

Abstract

In the past decade, local authorities have become increasingly involved in the development of policies to alleviate the effects of economic decline. In this paper, the authors' primary objective is to determine, the extent to which these policies are being evaluated. They also consider the ways in which evaluation is caried out and the problems associated with this.

Most local authorities claim to be involved in some form of evaluation. However, the evidence tends to suggest that little more than monitoring takes place. It seems that the desire to be seen to be doing something to ameliorate the impact of the recession is perhaps more important than the actual effectiveness of local authority economic intervention.