Towards evidence‐based local government: Theory and practice

Abstract

’Evidence‐based practice’ is a term used in Britain's National Health Service to describe the use of research evidence in policy, management and practice decisions. This article develops this idea and explores its use in local government decision making, using case studies of social care and education. It argues that the absence of a funding stream to support local authorities’ own research reinforces a view of local authorities as essentially administrative arms of the state, supervised through service‐by‐service performance measurement, rather than ‘intelligent’ agents using local research to develop evidence‐based policies.