ABSTRACT
Whether we like it or not, we live in an evaluation culture. This is the result of social change over the past thirty years. The growth of the consumer movement in the 1970s encouraged consumers of goods and services to view much more critically the quality of service they received and to complain if they were not satisfied. From 1976 onwards declining patterns of public expenditure signalled the need to maximise resources and defend pre-existing patterns of expenditure, something which usually requires the collection of data. Declining public expenditure in the 80s was compounded by economic recession which encouraged consumers to spend more carefully and look critically at the goods and services they purchased.
