ABSTRACT
Improvement could reasonably have been expected for a cohort recruited two years after the reforms came fully into operation. But we anticipated the improvements to have been substantial only in departments whose approach to reform had been most coherent. Instead, what the analysis has discovered is a large number of service productivity effects for the entire group of authorities. That provides one part of the answer to the most general of the questions posed at the opening of the book. We should at least maintain the investment ratio because the investments of the past decade have had powerful and pervasive effects on productivities in the production of highly valued outputs. A decade ago, the argument was that the investment ratio had to be raised or the new policy would face disaster (Davies et al., 1990,399). Today, the case is that investment ratio should be high because the rate of return on investment has been shown to be great. The other part of the answer is given by the complex story about how the best policy strategy depends on circumstances, but how investment would have a good chance of success in creating those circumstances that would continue to transform equity and efficiency.
