This article offers one possible position statement on contemporary Programme Evaluation. Recent developments in this field of practice have seen some commercialisation, politicisation and retreat into theory. There has been a burgeoning growth of the use of programme evaluation for advocacy purposes. We argue that this has been to the neglect of validity – the justification, defensibility and credibility of an evaluation – and we counsel a return to earlier preoccupations with validity, some of which have been lost. We go further, to argue that there is a deficit in validity considerations which is ameliorated with a focus on judgement, experience and expansion of the ‘peripheral vision’ of the evaluator. A broad take on Humanism as an aspect of validity evaluation is also offered.
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