As reforms of the public sector have introduced market relationships and private sector management practices, a ‘managerialist’ conception of accountability has developed, tied to a panoply of forms of performance measurement and ‘surveillance’ and which is now strongly evident in the government's ‘best value’ framework for local government. This exemplar of ‘instrumental rationality’ provides an inadequate basis for realising the full potential role of evaluation in the process of ‘renewing’ local government. A ‘critical‐pluralist’ approach is proposed as a basis for enhancing the capacity of local government to address complex economic and social problems, to embed learning and improvement and to develop a meaningful ‘dialogue’ with its citizens.
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