South West Wales: UKSPF summary evaluation plan
Published 4 April 2025
Applies to Wales
© Crown copyright 2025
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Summary of the local place
South West Wales covers the local authority areas of Swansea, Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot and Pembrokeshire, forming one of four economic regions in Wales. Home to 22% of Wales’ population, it includes Wales’ second city, Swansea, coastal and market towns, and rural communities.
Map of South West Wales
In 2021, the four local authorities, along with Welsh Government and wider regional stakeholders agreed a Regional Economic Framework[footnote 1] setting out three main missions: to establish the area as a UK leader in renewable energy and the net zero economy; to build a strong, resilient and ‘embedded’ business base; and to grow and sustain the South West Wales ‘experience’ offer.
The UKSPF Investment Plan for South West Wales[footnote 2] comprises a relatively even split of investment across the priorities of ‘Supporting Local Businesses’, ‘People and Skills’, and ‘Communities and Place’, with the addition of Multiply programme funding. Within each of the three main priorities the region focused on strategic ‘Anchor’ projects alongside open calls available to support smaller projects.
Unit of analysis
It is proposed that the evaluation focuses on one main intervention type from across each of the three main investment priorities, reflecting the large scale of the programme and a relatively even split of funds across each. The business and place anchors in particular tie closely to two of the three missions from the regional economic framework, reflecting their strategic importance.
The selected units of analysis will allow for evaluation of the effectiveness of the SW Wales model, whereby the ‘Anchor’ investments involve a strategically co-ordinated approach across the four local authorities but allow for localised flexibility in delivery. This is recognised as a more integrated approach than in many other areas, and one from which it would be valuable to draw lessons.
- Business Anchor – focusing on outcomes for businesses from the co-ordinated package of support across South West Wales. There is a core offer common across all areas, but the activity is being delivered by each authority individually. This provides opportunities to compare approaches and identify effectiveness and impacts of the SPF investment, as well as lessons that can be drawn from the specific approaches applied in each authority area.
- Employability Anchor – similar to the above, this will focus on outcomes for individuals being supported into work and will cover all four local authorities, where there is a core offer common across all areas, but the activity is being delivered by each area individually.
- Place Anchor – this will cover investments in enhancing town/city centre quality of place and will focus 1-2 centres in each of the four authorities.
Methodological approach
Process evaluation
The process evaluation will analyse core thematic areas including fund design, fund implementation, delivery of interventions and data collection & monitoring. The South West Wales case study will particularly focus on analysing the effectiveness of strategic design of common ‘Anchor’ projects across the four local authorities and the balance of the strategic ‘Anchor’ projects with open call approaches, as well as reviewing the approach to delivery of the Multiply funding.
Process evaluation tasks will involve review of data, documents and changes to policy & socio-economic context, consultations with delivery and strategic stakeholders and surveys with project delivery bodies.
Impact evaluation
Quasi-experimental design (QED) approaches have been considered for each of the four elements of the evaluation, with the following conclusions.
- Business Anchor – it is assessed that QED would not be viable. The main approach for this would be to identify a comparison group through the Business Structures Database, however the lag on data availability through this approach means insufficient time would have elapsed by the time of the evaluation work for changes in year-on-year turnover and employment to be detected.
- Employability Anchor – it is assessed that QED would be viable. This would seek to utilise the DWP Datalab to identify a matched group of individuals to those supported by the programme to track changes in employment outcomes for treated and comparison group individuals.
- Place Anchor – it is assessed that QED would not be viable. The combination of UK SPF funding alongside Levelling Up Fund, Transforming Towns Funds and other funds, makes robust attribution and finding comparison locations which have not received funding, very challenging.
Across all three, a Contribution Analysis impact evaluation method is proposed (with the QED providing complementary evidence for the case of the Employability Anchor). This will allow for assessment of the changes in key outcome indicators relating to each intervention type, and an analysis of the contribution made to those changes by UK SPF funded activities.
Economic evaluation
It is proposed that the economic evaluation will follow the 4E’s approach set out by the National Audit office, considering economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity of the programme investments. Where possible, this will incorporate cost effectiveness analysis drawing on the net additional impact analysis from the quasi-experimental design relating to the employability Anchor project.
Data to support the evaluation
The following data sources will be used across the three main strands of the impact evaluation:
Primary data collection
| Business Anchor | Employability Anchor | Place Anchor |
|---|---|---|
| ■ Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) ■ Surveys of supported businesses (stratified sampling approach to cover different support types) ■ Surveys of non-supported businesses (i.e. those applying but unsuccessful) |
■ Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) ■ Surveys of supported individuals |
■ Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) ■ Research with users of town / city centre spaces, including residents, businesses, visitors |
Secondary data sources
| Business Anchor | Employability Anchor | Place Anchor |
|---|---|---|
| ■ ONS data on business counts, employment, business births, deaths and survival rates | ■ ONS data on unemployment, economic inactivity and claimant counts | ■ Footfall counts collected by local authorities ■ Visitor numbers for key town / city centre attractions ■ Town / city centre premise vacancy rates ■ ‘Your Community, Your Say’ survey on perceptions of place |