An evaluation system for government: If politics is theatre, then evaluation is (mostly) art

Policy Analysis and Governance: Analytical and Policy Styles in Canada

“…In that era, largely coinciding with the introduction of formal policy analysis in the cabinet and expenditure management systems adopted by federal and provincial governments in the 1960s and 1970s, the analytical style followed was very much the rational type identified by Mayer, Van Daalen and Bots (Prince 1979, French 1980. However, by the early 1980s academic observers had concluded that the range of actors and the patterns of power and influence had changed, creating a more complex analytical environment which negated many of the aspirations of purely rational analysis; shelving and ignoring many of the products of this analysis (Hartle 1978, Dobell andZussman 1981). Changes in policy communities -such as the rise of special interest groups, think tanks, citizens, and international actors -served to complicate agenda-setting and policy making, and created alternative sources of policy analysis, research and data (Pross 1992, Atkinson and Coleman 1989, Coleman and Skogstad 1990.…”

Strategic Evaluation Utilization in the Canadian Federal Government

“…In their account of the role of program evaluation in government decisionmaking, Dobell and Zussman (1981) highlight three reasons why evaluations are not often considered by decision makers: first, evaluation as a function and a practice is not always clearly understood by senior managers and program staff-their expectations are sometimes misaligned with what evaluators are able to contribute. Second, the authors cite tacit resistance to evaluation on the part of program managers.…”

Sunshine, Scrutiny, and Spending Review in Canada, Trudeau to Trudeau: From Program Evaluation and Policy to Commitment and Results

“…We accept the general conclusions in the articles by John Mayne and others in this special issue that formal program evaluation cannot help much, and we argue below that deliverology may be a different thing. We will therefore not attempt any survey or appraisal of the current academic or professional literature on the theory and practice of evaluation-topics that are pursued more fully and effectively through other pages of this journal, as well as in reviews such as Dobell (2003) or in standard texts such as Eliadis et al (2011) or McDavid, Huse, and Hawthorn (2012). Rather, we return to the message of an earlier paper (Dobell and Zussman, 1981) to emphasize that the key concerns lie elsewhere, in the role that must be played by disclosure of the narratives and evidence underlying decisionmaking (including performance monitoring and program evaluation results) in buttressing the legitimacy of government.…”

“…We will therefore not attempt any survey or appraisal of the current academic or professional literature on the theory and practice of evaluation-topics that are pursued more fully and effectively through other pages of this journal, as well as in reviews such as Dobell (2003) or in standard texts such as Eliadis et al (2011) or McDavid, Huse, and Hawthorn (2012). Rather, we return to the message of an earlier paper (Dobell and Zussman, 1981) to emphasize that the key concerns lie elsewhere, in the role that must be played by disclosure of the narratives and evidence underlying decisionmaking (including performance monitoring and program evaluation results) in buttressing the legitimacy of government. For this reason, we emphasize the need for the present government to complete the crucial review and reform of access to information policy that was promised in the 2015 election campaign to offset the erosion of that policy that has occurred since it was developed in the earlier Trudeau government in the 1970s and 1980s.…”