Government policy increasingly emphasises the importance of community care services for people with learning difficulties and other long term disabilities, although when people have substantial disabilities, it is often a major challenge to design and run such services. Service evaluation can help to meet this challenge by asking key questions. Is the service adequately meeting the need of individual users? Are resources being used effectively and efficiently? This publication has been written to help people plan, conduct and use an evaluation of services for people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour, whether they work in the independent sector, health authority , local authority or elsewhere.