THE PROCESS OF POLICY FORMULATION

Critical Analysis of the Process of Policy Formulation within Local Government

Critical Analysis of the Process of Policy Formulation within Local Government

Introduction

Evaluation of social policies began in the U.S. in 1950 and 1960, and reached the UK in the early 1970's (Everitt and Hardiker 1996:42-43) by this time the British social policy has been focused on the Beveridge "welfare state "(Jones 1991: 134)." Score "the term has many definitions (Alkin 1990:81-3), but for the purposes of this article, I will use a broad definition of Patton's assessment as" any effort to increase efficiency through the systematic human-based data investigation "(1990: 11). Evaluation research differs from traditional research because it is not just collect data to improve knowledge, but also to support the recommendations for action (Patton 1986:14).

Quantitative Approach

A quantitative approach to evaluating social policy emphasizes neutrality and objectivity of the investigator; conceptualizes the practice in terms of clearly defined positivist model, seeking the cause-effect relationships between inputs and outputs, and also uses other measures to control and experimental groups so that different results may be measured and compared (Everitt and Hardiker 1996:46). Qualitative approach rejects the notion of neutrality and objectivity of the researcher. Instead, it aims to identify the participants understanding of the importance of processes, situations and impacts; handles values is fundamental to the Parties of the agreements, and recognizes that a reflexive approach to practice assessment is important for knowledge creation (Shaw.: 87). Qualitative approach recognizes evaluation as a political activity taking place in a political context, and is used by researchers who are independent, because they have no direct interest in the work, the estimate (Tilly 1999: 92.97). As part of the qualitative approach, assessment is divided into "formative" assessment, which evaluates the process and the "summary" evaluation, which assesses the results (Wright 1984, Everitt and Hardiker 1996:88).

The quantitative approach uses quantitative data such as census data, test results and surveys that require answers to closed questions, or scaling (Torres, Preskill, and Piontek 1996:97), which usually analyzed using statistical formulas. Qualitative approach also uses some quantitative data, together with qualitative data, which may include observation, interviews, focus groups, historical documents and videos (Shaw.: 97), their analysis is not at all formulaic (Patton 1990:372). These approaches are provided in different epistemological framework: a quantitative approach refers to a positivist epistemology (Finch, 1986:8), which comes from the traditional hypothetico-deductive science (Patton 1986:182), a qualitative approach belongs to the interpretivist epistemology, "emphasizes understanding the meaning social world from the perspective of the actor (Finch 1986:10) and derives from the social sciences, in particular, anthropological field (Patton 1986:182).

Early estimates were used almost exclusively quantitative approach (House 1993:4). Pinker suggested that data on "monitoring progress, measuring the use and evaluation of services" should be collected primarily from the Census (1976:195). He also said that "additional information" would be necessary to "estimate the change in consumer preferences" (Shaw.: 196), which seems to nod qualitative data, but he did not elaborate. Ten years later, Finch said that qualitative approaches are at ...