ABSTRACT
In the face of limited resources and potentially limitless demands there is growing pressure to justify government spending on particular policy interventions rather than others. The expansion of the managerial culture into the social policy arena has led to demands for government programmes to be examined in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency and economy – the three Es of ‘management-speak’, Few would argue that these are not desirable attributes of any spending programme but the question of how to measure them is far from clear-cut. The effectiveness of a programme in achieving its objectives, its efficiency in terms of producing a defined outcome with the lowest possible input and its achievement of that outcome at minimum cost to the Treasury all rely for their measurement on clear outcome objectives and mechanisms through which outcomes can be measured.
