Levelling Up Fund: Impact evaluation scoping report - foreword
Published 19 June 2023
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Foreword
Director for Analysis and Data & Chief Economist
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is strongly committed to the robust evaluation of its policies and programmes – as set out in its recently published Evaluation Strategy.
This report presents the findings of a feasibility study – commissioned by DLUHC and the Department for Transport from Ipsos – to identify the most appropriate methods for conducting a robust impact and value for money evaluation of the Levelling Up Fund (LUF).
The LUF seeks to improve everyday life by investing in local infrastructure of various kinds in communities across all parts of the United Kingdom. The fund is place-based, meaning interventions are tailored to the local context. Applicants can bid for a wide range of projects that fall under three broad investment themes: transport, regeneration and culture. Evaluating place-based policies of this nature faces a range of methodological challenges – for example, the projects are diverse (making comparisons between areas difficult) and the exact ultimate beneficiaries of the projects and the difference they make may not be easy to identify.
This makes a feasibility study of this kind all the more important – we need to get the methodology right from the outset.
The study, the conclusions of which are set out in this report, drew on expertise in local growth and levelling up policy as well as in econometrics, evaluation methods, and innovative data sources. It sets out an approach to assessing the impact of the LUF using granular data and distance decay theory, methods which have been used to great effect by Gibbons et al. (2017, 2017) in their work on the impact of investment in transport infrastructure and regeneration projects in recent years.
The approach set out in this report will help to underpin a robust evaluation of the impact of LUF on strengthening the local economy of places and improving the quality of life for residents.
I would like to thank the Ipsos research team led by Chris Hale for their work: James Kearney, Gunal Kunal, Stephen McSwiney and George Barrett, the expert advisor to the team. I would also like to thank those who worked closely with them in DLUHC – Gianpaolo Manalastas and Fiona Shilston – as well as the advice given by Dannielle Mason and Victoria Sutherland at the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth.
DLUHC is strongly committed to improving its evidence base in this and other areas with a view to better informing future policy development and improving outcomes for people and places across the United Kingdom.
Stephen Aldridge
Director for Analysis and Data & Chief Economist
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities