The triumph of darkness? An experience of operational research work with a local authority

Decision-making in local government is often concerned with the deployment of large amounts of resource under conditions of uncertainty and change. Such conditions would seem to offer considerable scope for the application of Operational Research OR. However, there are practical difficulties in carrying out Operational Research OR in local government, not least of which is the political complexity of the environment. In this article, the authors describe their own first-hand experiences of these difficulties.