Seager, Richard Henry (1978) The implementation of London borough housing policies: the role and uses of monitoring and evaluation. (MPhil thesis), Kingston Polytechnic, .

Abstract

This thesis is based on the assumption that monitoring and evaluation can greatly assist the successful implementation of London Borough housing policies. Monitoring is defined as "the collection of information" and evaluation as "judging something against a standard”. Housing policy implementation involves the allocation of resources as a result of decision-making. To understand fully the role and uses of monitoring and evaluation, therefore, their functions within one model of decision-making (the rational process) are examined. Their role is to assist in the efficient allocation of resources. This is achieved through their uses which are to help define and describe the problem faced, examine the possible options available, select the strategy for implementation and review the progress of the selected strategy once it has been put into practice. The decision-making process within which monitoring and evaluation function is bounded by a number of factors. It is bounded by the limited resources available, the organisational structure within which decisions are made and the prevalence of various “orthodoxies”. The result of these factors is to pre-empt the decision-making process. Their effect upon the role and uses of monitoring and evaluation is to reduce them to a largely self-fulfilling function. To test this argument, three case studies of London Borough housing policy implementation are studied. The first is of the Edward Woods Estate, a 1960’s redevelopment scheme in Hammersmith; the second is of the Shuttleworth Road General Improvement Area, Wandsworth; the third is into the uses made of Housing Associations by a representative sample of Boroughs. The case studies confirm that the decision-making process in each example is bounded by the above mentioned factors. The role and uses of monitoring and evaluation are similarly affected. Rather than help implement an appropriate means to achieve a desired end, they simply support and justify pre-determined strategies. In conclusion, it is argued that monitoring and evaluation could still greatly assist the successful implementation of London Borough housing policies if the existence of these bounding factors is recognised. Only then can they be overcome, at least in part. When this happens, monitoring and evaluation can be used critically and not mechanistically as at present.

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