INFORMATION AND SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY AND PLANNING‐INFUSE: A GREY DOCUMENTS ARCHIVE

Information systems have been heralded as indispensible tools for enhancing the performance of human services and producing positive outcomes for people (Poertner and Rapp, 1988). Such systems can play an important role in the processes of formulating social policy, planning, and programming. This role includes the identification of social issues and their formulation, goal clarification, the identification of priorities and alternatives in these processes, and in social monitoring and evaluation (Berman, 1985). In contradistinction to the political aspect of decision‐making, information systems aid in bringing about rationalization of the decision‐making process in the public policy sphere (Welrich, 1985). The effective use of information systems, however, is dependent upon the accessibility of the system to the decision‐maker during the decision‐making process. The place of the decision‐maker in the administrative structure determines the type of information he needs and its mode of application. The value of the information system in decision‐making is contingent upon the relevance of the information in content and in being available at the right time.