Maurice Baslé

Strengths and weaknesses of European Union policy evaluation methods: Ex-post evaluation of objective 2, 1994-99

Baslé M. (2006) Strengths and weaknesses of European Union policy evaluation methods: ex-post evaluation of Objective 2, 1994–99, Regional Studies 40, 225–235. The paper considers ex-post evaluation of Objective 2 at the regional level, focusing on the experience of France over 1994–99. These evaluations were ambitious, and when looking at the reports it identifies both strengths and weaknesses. The paper considers issues that are problematic in the case of the Structural Funds – such as adjustment lags, causality, measurement and ‘cross-checking’ of results using national data – which are explored both through a case study of an ex-post evaluation for the Brittany region, and through examination of the mid-term evaluations for France in 2003. While the paper does find some improvements in the quality of evaluation in the recent mid-term reports, it also identifies continuing problems. These include a weakness in the ‘logical diagram of impact’, tracing the chain of causality from actions to impacts, so that the paper argues for a more-detailed model of intervention. Objective 2u2003Ex-post evaluationu2003Regional developmentu2003France Baslé M. (2006) Strengths and weaknesses of European Union policy evaluation methods: ex-post evaluation of Objective 2, 1994–99, Regional Studies 40, 225–235. The paper considers ex-post evaluation of Objective 2 at the regional level, focusing on the experience of France over 1994–99. These evaluations were ambitious, and when looking at the reports it identifies both strengths and weaknesses. The paper considers issues that are problematic in the case of the Structural Funds – such as adjustment lags, causality, measurement and ‘cross-checking’ of results using national data – which are explored both through a case study of an ex-post evaluation for the Brittany region, and through examination of the mid-term evaluations for France in 2003. While the paper does find some improvements in the quality of evaluation in the recent mid-term reports, it also identifies continuing problems. These include a weakness in the ‘logical diagram of impact’, tracing the chain of causality from actions to impacts, so that the paper argues for a more-detailed model of intervention. Objectif 2u2003Evaluation ex-postu2003Aménagement du territoireu2003France Baslé M. (2006) Strengths and weaknesses of European Union policy evaluation methods: ex-post evaluation of Objective 2, 1994–99, Regional Studies 40, 225–235. The paper considers ex-post evaluation of Objective 2 at the regional level, focusing on the experience of France over 1994–99. These evaluations were ambitious, and when looking at the reports it identifies both strengths and weaknesses. The paper considers issues that are problematic in the case of the Structural Funds – such as adjustment lags, causality, measurement and ‘cross-checking’ of results using national data – which are explored both through a case study of an ex-post evaluation for the Brittany region, and through examination of the mid-term evaluations for France in 2003. While the paper does find some improvements in the quality of evaluation in the recent mid-term reports, it also identifies continuing problems. These include a weakness in the ‘logical diagram of impact’, tracing the chain of causality from actions to impacts, so that the paper argues for a more-detailed model of intervention. Ziel 2u2003Ex-post-Evaluierungu2003Regionalpolitiku2003Frankreich Baslé M. (2006) Ventajas e inconvenientes de los métodos de evaluación de la política de la UE: evaluación ex-post del Objetivo 2, 1994–99, Regional Studies 40, 225–235. En este artículo analizo la evaluación ex-post del Objetivo 2 a nivel regional, centrándome en la experiencia francesa durante el periodo 1994–99. Estas evaluaciones fueron ambiciosa y observando los informes, se identifican sus fortalezas y debilidades. En este documento se estudian los problemas que afectan a los Fondos Estructurales – tales comoretrasos en los ajustes, causalidad, medición y comprobación de resultados usando datos nacionales – y que se analizan poniendocomo ejemplo un caso práctico de una evaluación expost para la región de Bretaña y examinando las evaluaciones intermedias para Francia en 2003. Aunque se observan algunas mejoras de la calidad de evaluación en los últimos informes intermedios, también seidentifican problemas que ocurren de un modo continuo. Este sería el caso de las flaquezas en el ‘diagrama logico de impacto’. Analizando la cadena de causalidad desde las actuaciones a los impactos, se arguye que es necesario un modelo de intervención más detallado. Objetivo 2u2003Evaluación ex-postu2003Desarrollo regionalu2003Francia

Comparing outcomes profiles of public programmes with ELECTRE assistance instead of observing evolution of a synthetic impact index: illustration of the benefits of a multicriteria evaluation approach

This paper will show how we could ameliorate the quality of public policies and programmes monitoring and ongoing evaluations by using established outranking methods and ELECTRE software assistance. The craftiness is to take the outcomes of programmes for each period and to elaborate the outcomes multidimensional profile, and then to compare these profiles year after year without having the need to calculate and to observe the evolution of the corresponding synthetic impact index. This article outlines all of the net advantages of comparing annual outcomes profiles rather than the evolution of the aggregated index. We aim to show that the outcomes profiles can be compared by the same outranking methods as those used in the case of several options or projects compared during the same year. The well-known ELECTRE software assistance is used.

L’acculturation silencieuse à l’évaluation des politiques publiques et programmes dans les collectivités territoriales en France : le développement de capacités internes orientées vers la performance et la nouvelle gouvernance publique

L’evaluation des politiques publiques dans les collectivites territoriales n’est plus une activite nouvelle. Cette activite, developpee silencieusement, a suivi une trajectoire a double origine. En premier lieu, la participation a des activites et pratiques de l’Etat central et l’imitation avec l’apprentissage par la pratique d’evaluation sur des programmes publics cofinances. Et, en second lieu, une origine proprexa0: les pratiques evaluatives endogenes dans les collectivites ont ete aussi dependantes des dimensions organisationnelles des collectivites territoriales (taille, existence d’un service dedie, fonctionnement en reseau…) et politiques (proximites des elus et agents vis-a-vis des beneficiaires et citoyens). Quelques etudes de cas illustrent ici cette hypothese defendue de la double origine. Plus analytiquement, il apparait, malgre une assez grande heterogeneite entre collectivites territoriales, une double figure de l’innovation en evaluation dans les collectivites territorialesxa0: l’innovation a d’abord eu lieu a cause d’une implication manageriale forte dans les nouvelles pratiques evaluatives des collectivites territoriales (la montee en puissance du controle de gestion, du management strategique et recemment du management de la performance). Ensuite, l’innovation va de pair avec la volonte souvent observable d’animation du debat public de proximite (avec le sociogramme des parties prenantes d’un programme). Cette double figure d’innovation territoriale constitue une forme de mix tres contemporain et d’actualite entre la banniere de la «xa0Nouvelle performance publiquexa0» (NPP) et celle de la «xa0Nouvelle gouvernance publiquexa0» (NGP). C’est cette seconde banniere qui risque de prendre de l’importance avec le nouveau mode de gouvernance territoriale qui interviendra avec les lois de decentralisation et les restrictions dans les depenses, nouveau mode ou les collectivites davantage placees sur un pied d’egalite avec l’Etat pourront, selon des modalites propres, assurer leur responsabilite dans la conception, le suivi et l’evaluation des politiques publiques et des programmes territorialises.