The implementation of English social policy.

The evaluation of social policy began in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s, and reached the UK by the early 1970s (Everitt and Hardiker 1996:42-43) by which time British social policy was focused on Beveridge's 'Welfare State' (Jones 1991:134). The term 'evaluation' has many definitions (Alkin 1990:81-3), but for the purposes of this essay, I will use Patton's broad definition of evaluation as 'any effort to increase human effectiveness through systematic data-based inquiry' (1990:11). Evaluation research …

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