Research and analysis

County Durham: UKSPF summary evaluation plan

Published 16 October 2024

Applies to England

Summary of the local place

County Durham is situated in north-east England, with a geography characterised by a mix of urban and rural landscapes. It encompasses a diverse topography, including the Durham Dales, the North Pennines and coastal areas along the North Sea. Durham County Council is the Lead Local Authority for the local implementation of UKSPF. In May 2024, the council became part of the North East Combined Authority.

Map of County Durham 

County Durham received £30,830,618 of UKSPF funding across the priorities: Communities and Place (£6,547,281), People and Skills (£9,650,000) and Supporting Local Business (£14,234,434). The area also received an additional £2,803,077 allocation for Multiply, via the Department for Education, and a further allocation of £3.5 million through the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF).

Interventions within the Communities and Place investment priority follow two interlinked goals: strengthening the social fabric of communities and supporting increased pride in place. Some of the types of interventions included under these goals were enhancements to physical infrastructure; promoting tourism; increasing pride in place branding; supporting local people to access volunteering opportunities; and alleviating poverty.

Interventions in the Supporting Local Businesses investment priority have been primarily related to supporting local businesses to thrive, innovate and grow; and support local employment. These interventions cover measures such as providing grants to businesses; support for businesses and entrepreneurs around innovation and productivity; and support for internships.

The People and Skills interventions are aimed at reducing the barriers people face to employment and supporting them to move towards employment and education. The package of interventions for the priority covers the following: employment and skills support; volunteering opportunities; and life skills.

Unit of analysis

The County Durham case study will focus on the whole local authority area, due to the predominance of local authority-wide intervention delivery. The unit of analysis has also been shaped by the volume and focus of local evaluation which has been commissioned; these will focus on partnership approaches to implementation as well as intervention-specific evaluation.

As such, the place-based case study will look across all three investment priorities, reflecting County Durham’s focus on interdependencies between the three strands of work. It will explore the attainment of outcomes within the priorities, as well as cross-cutting outcomes such as economic growth and increased life chances.

Methodological approach

The case study will include process, impact and economic evaluation.

Process evaluation

To address MHCLG and County Durham’s learning needs, a process evaluation will be undertaken. The purpose of the process evaluation is to answer questions on the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of fund design and interventions and the efficiency and effectiveness of processes used to manage and deliver the Fund. The approach to the process evaluation will include:

• A review of the evolution of the local context at the interim and final stages.

• Analysis of MI to gather evidence on the progress of County Durham’s delivery of the programme.

• Stakeholder and beneficiary qualitative research to explore the set-up and implementation of the UKSPF investment in County Durham.

Impact evaluation

Following detailed review and discussion with Durham stakeholders, it was ascertained that quasi-experimental design (QED) with a particular focus on interventions in the Supporting Local Business priority would not be possible. Primary reasons included:

• The interventions are open to any business in County Durham to participate in, making it difficult to find a comparator group of businesses in the area.

• One intervention awards grants to small businesses. We explored whether comparisons could be drawn between successful applicants and those who were not awarded grants. However, it was noted that businesses would only be put forward for grants following support and participation in a “diagnostic process”; those businesses not put forward would still receive some support, making it difficult to determine attribution of impact through the evaluation. 

• The Lead Local Authority had previously applied to MHCLG to take part in the RCT programme, but was unsuccessful due to a lack of appropriate comparator groups.

Instead, contribution analysis will be used to assess what changes have taken place in County Durham, whether UKSPF has contributed to outcome achievement, and how and why. The research team will develop a contribution or performance story for outcomes expected to be achieved in County Durham. This will link to the Theory of Change and analysis will include:

• Management information, which will provide data on the progress towards, and achievement of outcomes as outlined in Durham’s Investment Plan.

• Primary research with stakeholders to capture data on outcomes from the perspective of stakeholders and critically allow exploration of why outcomes have or have not been achieved.

• Primary research with beneficiaries to allow more in-depth exploration of the outcomes achieved.

• Meta evaluation of Durham’s own commissioned evaluations, to provide important learning about the efficacy of interventions, addressing research questions in both the process and impact evaluation frameworks.

• There are potential limitations in using secondary data sources in terms of attribution of change to UKSPF activities. Nonetheless, many of these datasets (as outlined below) will be able to provide useful contextual information to support the evaluation.

Economic evaluation

The evaluation in County Durham will include a value for money assessment following the National Audit Office 4E’s approach, assessing the economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity of the UKSPF interventions.

Data to support the evaluation

Primary data collection

Stakeholder consultations and depth qualitative work will comprise research with stakeholders (including strategic, operational and frontline stakeholders) and research with beneficiaries (citizens, local business leaders, individuals accessing support). This data collection will capture evidence on the overall delivery and explore in depth the operation and outcomes of interventions and the investment as a whole.

To engage the different stakeholder groups, we will employ a range of qualitative approaches allowing us to offer flexibility in the ways stakeholders participate. This will include individual, paired or small group interviews, focus groups, surveys and observations. We will also survey beneficiaries of the three largest Supporting Local Business interventions.

Secondary data sources

Creating economic growth

• Local data on footfall and visitor data
• Business Structure Database
• Claimant count data or Annual population survey
• Gross Value Added data
• Gross Disposable Household Income*
• Employer Skills Survey*

*The use of these datasets is dependent on data release dates and alignment with intervention delivery.

Increasing community participation

• Community Life Survey

Increasing life chances

• Claimant count data or Annual Population Survey
• Annual Population Survey / Understanding Society or Community Life Survey

Increasing pride in place

• Annual Population Survey / Understanding Society or Community Life Survey