Politics and Practices of Intergovernmental Evaluation by Ray C. Rist

Author:Ray C. Rist [Rist, Ray C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Process, General
ISBN: 9781351292467
Google: 3yBWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-04-17T12:32:47+00:00

The EOP evaluation was an expensive one conducted in the period from 1984-1986. Thirteen different studies were completed which attempted to examine both effectiveness and program delivery issues. One of the studies involved a further follow-up of the clients of one evaluation study (Employment Support Initiative). Another provided a literature review of studies related to the evaluation of employment programs for social assistance recipients. The total cost of the evaluation was in excess of $1 million.

The decision to evaluate the EOP resulted initially from a meeting in the hall between a program manager and a member of the Ministry’s program evaluation staff. The evaluator suggested that pilot projects such as EOP should be evaluated and the manager agreed. This recommendation was accepted by senior executives within the Ministry.

The provincial ministry also decided that there would be no involvement of the federal government, municipal government, and other delivery agencies in the design and management of the evaluation studies. Stakeholders other than the Ministry of Community and Social Services were expressly excluded despite contrary recommendations from evaluation staff in the Ministry. The decision by senior management reflected political-bureaucratic interests and the fact that the funding for the study was coming exclusively from the Ministry’s budget.

Two committees were formed to develop the design of the evaluation project and to oversee the evaluation process. The advisory committee consisted of the assistant deputy minister, senior officials of the ministry and area office program staff. The working committee contained program managers from head office and evaluation staff from the ministry. This group met frequently to develop the terms of reference for the evaluation studies. Their recommendations were approved subsequently by the advisory committee. The advisory committee met rarely to deal with specific concerns expressed by the working committee and to approve requests for additional funding when that was needed. Given the fact that all of the people involved in the design of the evaluation study were from the Ministry, it comes as no surprise that there was little disagreement regarding what the fundamental evaluation questions and the scope of the studies should be. In other words, the evaluators limited themselves to matters of concern to the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Issues such as the possible overlap or complementarity with programs offered by Employment and Immigration Canada were ignored.

Once the working committee had developed the terms of reference for the several evaluations, requests for proposals were issued and external consultants were invited to submit their proposals. The consultants engaged to complete the studies worked closely with the working group. Meetings were common. It should be noted that the consultants did not have access to federal data bases or to most provincial data bases that might have been of some value because of confidentiality provisions of federal and provincial legislation. The participants of the programs being evaluated were asked to sign releases and they, together with program staff, provided most of the information necessary to complete the studies.

Once completed, the evaluation reports were sent to ministry

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