Assessment

Assessment, or evaluation, uses various methods in economics and the other social sciences to produce information that supports decision-making. Assessment systematically assembles objective information about the effects and results of social policy or the operations of the administration and compares the prevailing situation with the set targets (assessing the achievement of targets), with other comparable types of operations or units (benchmarking) or as a time series (identifying trends). Information obtained through assessment can be used to make economic and financial policy decisions about the allocation of appropriations for different purposes, the development of the tax and payment system and the functionality of legislation and the need to develop it. The acquisition and use of assessment information should indeed be part of the strategic planning and guidance of social policy and law-drafting and the monitoring of the functionality of legislation.

Assessments supplement the information in annual performance reporting and an assessment can be used in particular to outline the degree of success in a social policy (social effectiveness) and the financial efficiency of measures. Assessment is a good way of acquiring information about social cause-and-effect and interactive relationships and structural factors that have an impact on social effectiveness and efficiency. Assessing government agencies and departments produces information about the long-term trend in performance and, in particular, the structural factors affecting the efficiency and quality of operations. Assessment can be performed before, during or after operations.

Assessments cover:

• the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and development needs of social policy and the means used in it (policy assessment);
• the effects and performance of legislation and alternative means of guidance (assessment of the effect of legislation);
• an assessment of the performance, appropriateness, competitive, environmental and other effects and the development needs of government aid systems, government transfers and grants and other government financial support;
• the appropriateness of the strategies, targets and tasks of an administrative branch, or its individual agency or department or service systems, from the perspective of society and customers now and in the future (customer and future perspective) and the performance and its structural prerequisites (performance perspective);
• an assessment of action and operating programmes e.g. research programmes (programme assessment);
• an assessment of the performance and effects of  individual projects (project assessment).

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