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Comparative performance evaluation has taken different forms depending upon the purposes of performance monitoring and the types of measures available. This paper investigates the different performance measurement systems in place in the social care setting, in particular for older people receiving community care services. In England, earlier systems to assist performance management within organizations have been eclipsed by national systems of regulation with top- down implementation of standards and measures. In Northern Ireland, by contrast, organizations have been compared descriptively without the use of national targets. Internationally, in Japan, organizations arranging similar services have had more local information available collected in a bottom-up fashion with greater employment of service user-level data. These differences in performance evaluation are located within an analytical framework permitting comparisons of system design and the use of measures. Conclusions are drawn concerning the breadth of evidence available for successfully monitoring service provision in this setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, external assessments of organizational effectiveness have played an increasingly pivotal role in the regulation of UK local authorities. Unlike most approaches to evaluation, which are concerned with the implementation and outcomes of policies, programmes or interventions, these assessments are concerned primarily with internal organizational processes. And in contrast to traditional forms of public services inspection, which focus on specific services, they seek to judge the capacity of an organization as a whole. Inspectors in England, Scotland and Wales have taken different approaches to assessments of local authorities, but in all three cases their judgements have excited considerable interest among policy-makers, achieving a much higher level of utilization than is usual for evaluative activities and being credited with leading to significant improvements in public service organizations. There are, however, important questions about the validity of the measures they use and the sustainability of this approach to driving public services improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]