TOWARDS EVIDENCE-BASED LOCAL-GOVERNMENT - THEORY AND PRACTICE

'Evidence-based practice' is a term toed in Britain's National Health Service to describe the use of reseal-ch evidence in policy, managemen t and practice decisions. This article develops this idea and explores its use in local government decision making, using case studies of so cial care and education. It argues that the absence of a funding strea m to support local authorities own research reinforces a view of local authorities as essentially administrative alms of the state, supervis ed through service-by service performance measurement, rather than 'in telligent' agents using local research to develop evidence-based polic ies.