Abstract

Quality of life is considered one of the main criteria for evaluating public policy. Monitoring of social processes is a tool for control the quality of life, as well as developing recommendations for its improvement. Appropriate monitoring involves a collection of data according to defined principles and the subsequent application of the information obtained to analyze the effectiveness of the implementation of management goals or the use of funds received. Comprehensive monitoring should be increasingly used at the regional and local levels and provides the authorities with information about the problems of territorial development. Monitoring problems have been classified into the following groups: administrative and territorial, caused by the limited availability of official data, associated with low frequency or pronounced specificity of the process under investigation, those associated with the difficulty of unambiguous determination of indicators, caused by the so-called "human factor". Administrative reform can be followed with changes in the powers of the territorial authorities or its territorial basis. In some institutions and organizations at the regional level, statistic data are collected and published non-systematically. The monitoring is complicated by inconsistency conceptual and terminological apparatus or the methods of displaying statistical information. The human factor can manifest in a significant heterogeneity of the population within the studied group, social stigmatization of participants in events and processes, financial features, or the Free Rider Effect. The Polish experience in monitoring social processes provides important material for improving the methodology and methods of such studies in other countries.