This book explains the increasing demand for evaluation as a result of the increasing frequency of reforms to local services, influenced by the New Public Management doctrine, the severe austerity policy in many European countries, and the wish to increase quality and reduce costs of public services, especially at the local (sub-national) level.

1: Evaluating Reforms of Local Public and Social Services in Europe; Ivan Koprić, Hellmut Wollmann.- 2: Regulatory Impact Assessment and Sub-National Governments; Gerard Marcou, Anamarija Musa.- 3: Less Plato and More Aristotle: Empirical Evaluation of Public Policies in Local Services; Germà Bel.- 4: The Politics of Evaluation in Performance Management Regimes in English Local Government; Martin Laffin.- 5: Evaluating Personal Social Services in Germany; Hellmut Wollmann, Frank Bönker.- 6: Healthcare Marketization in Spain: The Case of Madrid’s Hospitals; José M. Alonso, Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz-Fuentes.- 7: The Institutionalisation of Performance Scrutiny Regimes and Beyond: The Case of Education and Elderly Care in Sweden; Stig Montin, Vicki Johansson, Lena Lindgren.- 8: The Organization of Local Education in Poland: An Evaluative Approach to the Outsourcing Model; Łukasz Mikuła, Marzena Walaszek.- 9: Reforming Local Service Delivery by Contracting Out? Evaluating the Experience of Danish Road and Park Services; Kurt Houlberg, Ole Helby Petersen.- 10: The Efficiency of Local Service Delivery: The Czech Republic and Slovakia; Jana Soukopová, Beata Mikušová Meričková, Juraj Nemec.- 11: Effects of External Agentification in Local Government: A European Comparison of Municipal Waste Management Harald Torsteinsen, Marieke van Genugten, Łukasz Mikuła, Carla Puiggrós Mussons, Esther Pano Puey.- 12: The Emergence of Water Public Services Performance Evaluation in France; Pierre Bauby, Mihaela Similie.- 13: Evaluation of Delivery Mechanisms in Water Supply Industry – Evidence from Slovenia; Primož Pevcin, Iztok Rakar.- 14:Apprentice Sorcerers. Evaluating the Program Theory of Regulatory Governance in Italian Public Utilities; Giulio Citroni, Marco Di Giulio, Maria Tullia Galanti, Andrea Lippi, Stefania Profeti.- 15: Evaluation of Decentralisation Programme in Croatia: Expectations, Problems, and Results; Ivan Koprić, Vedran Đulabić.- 16: Evaluating the Impact of Decentralization on Local Public Management Modernization in Croatia; Jasmina Džinić, Romea Manojlović.- 17: Evaluation of an Anti-Monopolist Program in Hungarian Public Utilities; Tamás M. Horváth.- 18: Metropolitan Municipality Reform: Rescaling Of Municipal Service Delivery in Turkey; Yeşeren Eliçin.- 19: Policy Evaluation Capacity in the Greek Local Government: Formal Implementation and Substantial failures; Theodore N. Tsekos, Athanasia Triantafyllopoulou.- 20: Lessons Learned from Successful and Unsuccessful Local Public and Social Services Delivery Reforms; Ivan Koprić.- 

“If local governments are the ‘lighthouses’ for our public sector, then this book is a ‘lighthouse’ for our knowledge about these European local governments. Based on evaluation-generated evidence, this book focuses on how concrete service delivery is affected by reforms. That makes this book a must-read for comparativists, whether they are academics, pracademics, or practitioners.” (Geert Bouckaert, Professor of Social Sciences at KU Leuven Public Governance Institute and President of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, Belgium)

“This book is an important step forward to extend our knowledge about the evaluation of modernization processes in local service delivery. By adopting a comparative perspective, the book explores various approaches and effects of local public sector reforms focusing on institutional changes in the provision of public services. A variety of key topics are critically analysed by internationally renowned experts of the field making this book a must-read for scholars and practitioners alike.” (Sabine Kuhlmann, Professor of Public Administration and Organization, University of Potsdam, Germany)

“This book appraises the evaluation of reforms to local and public and social services across a range of European countries. The use and quality of evaluation is highly variable within and across countries, and the analyses illuminate different approaches and continuing issues and lessons.” (John Halligan, Professor of Public Administration, Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra, Australia)

Provides an overview of the established results and effects of modernization, decentralization, and other New Public Management-driven reforms, austerity policy, and post-NPM influences Systematises lessons learned from both successful and unsuccessful changes of local public and social service delivery Examines evaluation in 17 European countries: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, and Turkey Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras