Evaluation and planning: inseparable concepts

Abstract

Evaluation is an established aspect of planning practice. Any planning process contains several stages of evaluation, when one or more of a wide range of methods are used in order to find out whether or not decisions cause a specified set of results. The focus within planning research has been on evaluation methods. This paper, however, examines how broad shifts in planning theory have affected the function and key characteristics of evaluation. For this purpose, the paper briefly describes eight theoretical positions in planning and appraises their implications for evaluation. The paper shows that political feasibility has become more manifest as planning has developed from the rational perspective to the contemporary communicative position. From both a theoretical and practical point of view 'planning' and 'evaluation' are inseparable concepts. A reasonably sensible planning system presupposes fairly well-reasoned evaluation. Regardless of which planning concept we have in mind, there is a fundamental insight in planning thought, namely that there is an intertemporal relationship amongst the actions of both an individual person and an organisation. What one does today is going to affect freedom of action tomorrow and the day after. An individual can perhaps work with the intertemporal relationship intuitively or make use of a cash book or diary. An organisation, however, must deliberately compile various actions in a document, which is often referred to as a 'plan' (Svenilson, 1975). As soon as actions are put together in a plan, option possibilities arise. They do so even when one does not prepare an explicit plan. An organisation can choose between several alternative actions. This in turn requires possibilities in order to judge possible results of the alternative actions. The latter is termed 'evaluation'. In other words, evaluation is a necessary element of planning. In planning science a distinction is made between cex ante' and 'ex posf evaluation. The former, sometimes defined as 'prospective' or 'forward looking', implies