Institutional Evaluation and LEA Advisory Services: Research Findings from the NFER LEA Advisers Project

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Abstract
Between 1985 and 1988, the LEA Advisers Project at the NFER took a detailed look at LEA advisory services and at the roles, management and deployment of their advisers. The research used both in‐depth LEA case studies and national surveys of all advisers and chief advisers. The findings were published in Stillman and Grant (1989). Part of the research which was not published in the main report involved the study of LEAs’ policies and practices for institutional evaluation. This paper presents those findings. The article starts by offering a framework for analysing the ideas of inspection and review. It continues with a description of advisory work and highlights the difficulties experienced by advisers during a period of enormous change and uncertainty. With institutional evaluation, the research showed many LEAs and advisers to have little experience of it. With the pressure of other work, institutional evaluation was often afforded a low priority and in response to demands for accountability, ‘inspection’ was often the only concept effectively considered. Even then, few LEAs had provided the necessary training or administrative back‐up. On the other hand, for all the political rhetoric surrounding inspection and improvement, the research suggested that the concepts of ‘inspection’ and ‘evaluation’ were often used in a simplistic fashion and there was little evidence that the argued improvement would actually follow. The contrasted views of inspecting and non‐inspecting advisers provide a valuable insight into the processes, expectations and limitations of inspection and institutional evaluation as a whole. Together with their chief advisers, the advisers generally support the view that improvement is best met by actively involving the school and by building up, in a rigorous and disciplined fashion, a detailed picture of the school over time. The alternatives to inspection, whilst offering more hope, would still seem to require training and back‐up.

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