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The term 'strategy' is now inescapably fixed in the vocabulary of politics. No manifesto, statement of public policy or policy analysis is complete without it. Political parties develop vote-winning strategies, governments commit themselves to industrial strategies, environmental strategies or health strategies, analysts urge the adoption of more strategic approaches to the resolution of political issues.
Nor is this just rhetoric. In the last decade or so public authorities of many kinds have engaged in strategic policy making or planning. The practice has become regarded as a proper part of management responsibility. Planning units have been established in many organisations, systematic procedures for strategic monitoring and review have been widely produced. The practice of strategic planning has become sufficiently widespread and sufficiently significant in the public sector to enable and merit some examination.
The concept of strategy, and the distinction between it and tactics, is military in its origin and developed through the 19th century. The most widely accepted military definition is that strategy is the means of bringing forces into contact with the enemy while tactics is the means of defeating him in battle.

Strengthening the accountability and improving the performance of public services is an important issue in many countries. A common response is to impose elaborate oversight or scrutiny arrangements. While we know a good deal about the formal operation of these arrangements, we know much less about the informal practices of scrutiny bodies and how they make judgements. This paper investigates scrutiny processes in three national audit bodies, three service inspectorates, and two inquiry committees in the UK. Judgement processes were analyzed along five dimensions: intuitive to analytical thinking; implicit to explicit assessment criteria; inductive and deductive methods; internal and external validity; and the principles used to make and evaluate judgements. These processes varied considerably, suggesting the need for a broader conception of the nature of and influences on scrutiny processes, which recognizes the inherent tensions in these processes and the skills required by those who engage in them.

This article reviews what has happened to put into effect the commitment to more evidencebased policy and practice in the UK, by identifying the opportunities this has offered to the research community and reflecting on the ways in which researchers have responded. It identifies a number of issues that remain unresolved and offers an agenda for those who are committed to advancing the application of evidence to policy and practice in the UK and elsewhere.