Home Conference structure Call for abstracts Venue Registration Contact		The theme and its rationale
		We seem to be at a political cusp, marking some degree of shift away from government centralisation – perhaps even towards social programming that is responsive to professional and organisational realities and community priorities.   The role of evaluation is becoming yet more complex.
		A succession of summative reports are showing shortfalls in flagship centre-led social programmes: health, criminal justice, education, defence, poverty alleviation - from the Literacy Strategy to ASBOs, from child protection to PFIs.  Confusingly, some of these are to be compared with previous in-process evaluations, some of which were broadly supportive and pointed to incremental gains.  What should the citizen and government be expecting of our evaluations?   How and what do evaluators learn and how do they make judgements of programme quality?
		At the level of professional action the ground is no more stable - the nature of professionalism is changing in relation to service integration and redefinitions of key social issues.  The balance between public, private and third sector continues to shift and their boundaries continue to be blurred.  We seem to be moving into new economic conditions and new cross-cultural relationships – many related to gathering global forces, including the human rights agenda and the intensification of the New Public Management.  Some organisations are calling for more complex information than that produced by impact assessments and performance data, concerned that performance-focused evaluation does not support their decision making needs.  All the while, government is increasingly interested in long-term economic impact, assuring a return on its investments.   The evaluation agenda is broad – and broadening.
		Where has evaluation been – and where is it going? What kinds of evidence have evaluators been generating, for whom and for what purposes – does the citizen benefit from our evaluations? What do evaluators mean by programme ‘quality’ – is this changing? What kinds of evidence do we need for new responsibilities faced by organisational managers? What is the right balance between evaluation of the ‘here and now’ and evaluation over the longer term – how do we capture learning from one evaluation to the next? How and what has government been learning from its initiatives – and what has it not been learning? How independent do we want evaluation to be? Has evaluation helped or hindered social cohesion with its information services? Should evaluation be providing government and institutions with information they need or only with information they want? How is evaluation changing and what skills are in demand? Where, what and how are evaluators learning?
		Some of these questions are familiar to UKES conferences and are perennial concerns. This conference invites us to take stock, but also to focus these themes on areas of professional policy, organisation and practice.  This provides an opportunity to explore contemporary challenges faced by government, the public and ‘third’ sectors and the implications for evaluators and evaluation.
		You are invited to submit proposals for paper presentations and structured discussion groups in response to those questions, but also to report your experience, dilemmas and thoughts about contemporary evaluation practice.   You will see below that we are providing a resource at this conference for discussions related to (a) specific professional groups and (b) broad areas of social action.   There will also be open sessions for people to address their own themes and issues, and space dedicated to research students.