The need to regulate and professionalise evaluation: the use of review and evaluation during the cuts

The paper discusses the extent to which we, as evaluation professionals, are prepared to allow evaluation to be used as a weapon to weed out groups with less powerful voices rather than to examine properly and work with departments to achieve solutions. The paper is an exploratory one presenting work in progress around the issue of so called ‘peer review’. Questioning whether professionalisation and regulation of evaluation could prevent review by non-evaluators being utilised as an acceptable basis for making decisions to take away people’s livelihoods? As part of this paper presents a detailed case study of a department in Higher Education which has been put through a process of review and the consequences this is having in the longer term. The stakes are high as centres of academic knowledge generation and teaching cannot be replaced once lost. The stakes are also high for the evaluation profession: should we sit by and allow evaluation to be undertaken by those without knowledge of the full range of evaluation techniques and professional competence? The paper raises the issue of whether evaluation now ought to become a regulated profession to prevent this kind of damaging mis-use of the evaluation and review function.