HUMPHREY, Jill C <br/><br/>
Bewitched or Bewildered? "Facts" and "values"in audit commission texts 

 -  2001 
<br/><br/> The Autidt  Commission undertakes audits and inspection in relation to local government, housing, social services, education and the health service, and in effect preside over the local governance of welfare. It legitimates its work by reference to a  peculiar fact-value nexus which has bewitched many proponents of welfare economics and evidence-based practice and bewildered many councillors and professionals, suggesting that the nexus itself  needs to be dissected and deciphered. The focus of this article is  on the Commission`s work in the sphere of local government in general and social sevices in particular. A critical appraisal of "facts" is undertaken in relation to costs, charges, outcomes and performances, whilst a critical appraisal of "values" is undertaken in relation to economics, politics, ethics and evaluations. It is suggested that there are good reasons for being bewitched and bewildered by the work of the Audit Commission, sice it combines quasi-scienrific researches with socio-political reforms and operates in the name of both upward accountability to the government and downward accountability to the people, offering a synthesis of virtues and values which simultanesously irresistible and impossible