ABSTRACT
Evaluators and auditors have long recognized the need for quality assurance. This is not surprising coming from analytical professions whose work is largely about improving and assuring the quality of program provision. Expected benefits of quality assurance are improvements in the credibility and use of evaluative information. Promoters of quality assurance have paid less attention to potential negative effects. Schwandt (1992: 99) followed House (1987) in opposing formalized quality control, as in the establishment of “some kind of evaluation institute that would monitor quality” for fear that this would impose “an orthodox point of view about evaluation work.” Nevertheless, there is broad consensus that the production of evaluative information ought to be subject to some form of quality assurance.
