politics of evaluation

David Taylor is Head of the School of Applied Social Science at the University of Brighton. He is Editor of the collection Breaking down barriers: Reviewing partnership practice (HSPRC, 2001) and is a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Critical Social Policy.Susan Balloch is Professor of Health and Social Care and Director of the Health and Social Policy Research Centre at the University of Brighton. She is co-author of Social services: Working under pressure (1999) and Partnership working: Policy and practice (2001), also published by The Policy Press.

• Introduction: The politics of evaluation: an overview ~ David Taylor and Susan Balloch; Part One: Governance and evaluation: Below decks on the youth justice flagship: the politics of evaluation ~ Peter Squires and Lynda Measor; Urban regeneration: who defines the indicators? ~ Peter Ambrose; Reaching for the stars: the performance assessment framework for social services ~ Stella Law and Karin Janzon; Part Two: Participation and evaluation: Service-user involvement in evaluation and research: issues, dilemmas and destinations ~ Peter Beresford; Best Value but not best interests: can service users instruct mental health advocates? ~ Hazel Platzer; New Deal for Communities as a participatory public policy: the challenges for evaluation ~ Kay Graham and Amanda Harris; Discovery through dialogue and appreciative inquiry: a participative evaluation framework for project development ~ Glynis Cousin, Judith Cousin and Frances Deepwell; Evaluating projects aimed at supporting the parents of young people: "I didn't learn anything new, but..." ~ Debi Roker; Part Three: Partnerships and evaluation: Evaluating interagency working in health and social care: politics, policies and outcomes for service users ~ Audrey Leathard; Reflections on an evaluation of partnerships to cope with winter pressures ~ Susan Balloch, Alison Penn and Helen Charnley; Evaluating a partnership approach to supporting people into employment ~ Hilary Arksey; Part Four: Learning from evaluation: Evaluation and New Deal for Communities: learning what for whom? ~ Ian Smith and Lucy Grimshaw; Community-led regeneration: learning loops or reinvented wheels? ~ Mike Rowe and Marilyn Taylor; Can social capital be a framework for participative evaluation of community health work? ~ Jennie Fleming and Thilo Boeck; Learning the art of evaluation: presume the presence of politics ~ Georgie Parry-Crooke and Cathy Sullivan; Conclusion: What the politics of evaluation implies ~ Susan Balloch and David Taylor.

"I never thought I would find myself describing a book on evaluation as exciting, but this one is. I recommend it to anyone leading or evaluating projects." The British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management