Promotion of further vocational training of the unemployed by the German Federal Employment Agency has been reduced dramatically during the last few years. Furthermore, the duration of training has been shortened. Both can be explained by changes in policy objectives: the new logic of performance management requires that participants perform successfully in the labour market very quickly. However, current evaluation findings also approve of longer measures because of positive effects in the long run, which cannot be detected by the monitoring system. Therefore, the current policy regarding further vocational training should be revised. This example shows that evaluation studies need a flexible time horizon. Even though long-term evaluations don’t satisfy the short-term needs of governance, they provide important results that should serve as feedback to policy.