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Saturday, January 10, 1976
"A third view is that the first objective of evaluation should be to
set minimum acceptable standards against which performance can be measured."
Turning to the objectives of evaluation in the local social welfare.
context, the Director said, "There appears to be general agreement that
tinue
rather than continue on an agency-based approach to evaluation, evaluation in
the future should take a broader perspective of services in order to establish:
firstly, the need for a particular service and, possibly, differing categories
of need in order of priority.
"Secondly, the relevance of the objectives.of the group of agencies
providing a service to the need for the service; thirdly, the extent to which
agencies are meeting their objectives with regard to services."
"And fourthly, any gaps that exist in an area of service and the
steps that are necessary to fill those gaps," he continued,
On the need for evaluation, Mr. Lee noted: "Government, as the main
financier of the voluntary sector, is in effect 'buying' welfare services through
subvention, aand therefore has a duty to provide the means of ensuring. that the
resources expended on agency services are properly utilised.
This has become particularly important in recent years as Government
has become involved to an ever-increasing extent in the financing of voluntary
welfare services.
Mr. Lce also mentioned other reasons why evaluation was desirable.
"For example," he said, "the need to upgrade the quality of services for its
own sake or to provide basic information fer planning purpose. But the
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