Research and analysis

North Ayrshire: UKSPF summary evaluation plan

Published 4 April 2025

Applies to England

Summary of the local place

North Ayrshire Council (NAC) is one of three local authority areas that comprise the Ayrshire region on Scotland’s west coast. North Ayrshire has a mixed geography with towns and smaller settlements sitting to the west of the Glasgow City Region. It has stretches of coastline, including the islands of Arran and Cumbrae. The population is 133,490 people^{[footnote 1]}. It is an area with some of the highest levels of deprivation in Scotland. There is considerable funding to support the local region in addition to the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), most notably the pan-Ayrshire Growth Deal^{[footnote 2]}.

Map of North Ayrshire

The UKSPF allocation for North Ayrshire over the three-year programme is £6,200,649 which comprises £5,129,854 core UKSPF (inc. Admin costs) and £1,070,795 ‘Multiply’ funding. Core UKSPF funding (excluding ‘Multiply’) is allocated as follows: ‘People and Skills’ (£2,930,039), ‘Communities and Place’ (£1,279,275) and ‘Supporting Local Businesses’ (£675,000).

Under the ‘People and Skills’, the priority is to retain continuity with existing European Social Fund (ESF) funded service provision. There is a focus on employability, with support targeted at people with disabilities, those who are economically inactive and people who have been involved in the criminal justice system. Support can be intensive key worker support and supported employment opportunities. It also includes supporting people currently underemployed into higher paying employment. Some programmes are delivered directly by local authority (LA) departments and others by local third sector operators. There is also an amount allocated for local grants through the local employability partnership.

There are 13 interventions that address the ‘Communities and Place’ investment priority. There have been two rounds of competitive bidding for projects to enhance local amenities and sports facilities. There are also several ‘council-led’ projects which have enabled NAC to deliver on commitments with funding shortfalls. Interventions under the ‘Supporting Local Businesses’ investment priority are consultancy and grant support. In relation to ‘Communities and Place’, UKSPF has enabled the local authority to target support in remote places, such as Arran, which don’t generally benefit from support as these areas are less deprived than other places in the LA.

Unit of analysis

The place level evaluation of North Ayrshire will focus on the whole LA area due to the predominance of LA-wide delivery of interventions. It will look across all three investment priorities. There were plans – but limited budget – for locally commissioned evaluation activity. However, the central MHCLG evaluation resource and budget available means NAC will rely on evidence from this evaluation instead, which is a further case for this study covering the entire LA.

Methodological approach

Process evaluation

A process evaluation will be undertaken to explore 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
• analysis of Monitoring Information (MI) to evidence the progress in North Ayrshire’s delivery of the programme
• stakeholder and beneficiary qualitative research to explore the set-up and implementation of the UKSPF investment in North Ayrshire

Impact evaluation

Following an initial review and evaluability assessment, it does not seem feasible or proportionate to deliver Quasi Experimental Design (QED) approaches in North Ayrshire during the case study delivery period. This is due to the following limitations:

• Challenges with attribution: Aside from Communities and Place interventions, most activities funded by UKSPF are continuations of projects previously funded by ESF. This means that even if changes were detectable in local datasets, accounting for time lags, observable impacts could be a result of the previous investment.
• Availability of suitable comparators: All interventions are available across the LA area, meaning there are no readily comparable control areas within the LA. Similarly, UKSPF is available in neighbouring LAs, limiting the opportunity to establish control groups from the surrounding area.

Further limitations to the impact evaluation include:

• Scale and spatial distribution of interventions: Business Support interventions total only 11% of the UKSPF budget for North Ayrshire and are available across the whole LA. This limits the likelihood of observing significant change in outcomes at any scale.
• Delays in delivery: Delays in the commencement of UKSPF activity mean there is only a two-year window within which to see demonstrable impact.

Contribution analysis will be used to assess what changes have taken place in North Ayrshire, whether UKSPF has contributed to outcome achievement, how and why. The research team will develop a contribution or performance narrative for outcomes expected to be achieved in North Ayrshire, linked to the Theory of Change, using:

• management information which will provide data on the progress towards, and achievement of outcomes as outlined in North Ayrshire’s Investment Plan
• primary research with stakeholders in the local authority, actors in the local economy and employment partnerships to capture data on outcomes from their perspective and critically allow exploration of why outcomes have or have not been achieved
• primary research with beneficiaries, including businesses, will allow more in-depth exploration of the outcomes achieved
• there are potential limitations in using secondary data sources. For example, the scale of the business activity in North Ayrshire might not be observable in these sets. Attribution is also a challenge. Nonetheless, the datasets outlined below will provide contextual information to support the evaluation.

Economic evaluation

The evaluation in North Ayrshire 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

Consultations and qualitative interviews will be conducted with stakeholders (including strategic, operational and frontline stakeholders) and beneficiaries (citizens, local business leaders, individuals accessing support). This data collection will capture evidence on the delivery, operations and outcomes of the interventions, and of the investment. To engage the different stakeholder groups, we will employ a range of approaches to offer flexibility and facilitate participation. This will include individual, paired or small group interviews, focus groups, surveys and observations.

Secondary data sources

Communities and Place	Local perceptions survey. ‘Your Community, Your Say’ survey.
People and Skills	Data from the YETI and CMI client management systems (registrations, assessment outcomes, qualifications gained, employment and work experience outcomes). Data available at engagement points (4, 13, 26 and 52 weeks). Claimant count data, employment and unemployment data. SDS datahub.
Supporting Local Businesses	Scottish Government Businesses in Scotland data. NAC, Scottish Enterprise and Business Gateway data.

1. “Mid-Year Population Estimates, UK, June 2022”. Office for National Statistics. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024. ↩

2. For more detail, see Ayrshire Growth Deal. ↩