Research and analysis

Local Digital programme evaluation: executive summary

Published 22 June 2026

Applies to England

This report presents the findings of an independent evaluation of the Local Digital programme, commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in April 2023.

The programme, established in 2018, aimed to increase digital and cyber security capability across the local government sector in England. Between 2018 and 2025, it distributed approximately £47 million in grant funding to councils and provided support through 5 distinct workstreams:

• Local Digital Fund
• Future Councils
• Cyber Support
• Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF)
• Training

This evaluation, conducted by a consortium consisting of PUBLIC, Socitm, and Daintta, with support from Perspective Economics, includes Process, Impact, and Value for Money evaluations. Findings presented in this report are current as of January 2025, unless otherwise indicated.

Programme overview and context

The Local Digital programme, developed by MHCLG’s Local Digital team, aimed to help public sector organisations move beyond basic digitisation by building their long-term ability to adapt and improve in a changing digital landscape. Building on the 2018 Local Digital Declaration, a public commitment made by councils and other public authorities to a shared vision for digital transformation, the programme aimed to drive digital and cyber maturity across local government.

Its initial intervention, the Local Digital Fund, provided funding and support to councils to meet the Declaration’s commitments. Subsequently, CAF and Cyber Support were added in 2020, and a formal Training series in 2021. In 2022, Future Councils was introduced, encompassing both cyber and digital components. From 2018 to 2025 the programme supported 268 English local authorities and invested a total of £74.6 million across the evaluated workstreams, including both grant funding and programme delivery costs.

While delivery has concluded, some Local Digital Fund projects remain active, Future Councils participants continue their work, and Cyber Support councils are still reporting on their Cyber Treatment Plans. Monitoring and capturing of workstream activities’ data took place from April 2023 to January 2025.

Evaluation methodology

The evaluation used a mixed-methods approach, covering the period from the launch of the Local Digital Fund in 2018/19 to the end of delivery for all evaluated workstreams (except CAF) in 2024/25.

Primary data collection extensively utilised semi-structured interviews, with 130 interviews conducted across councils, MHCLG staff, delivery partners, suppliers, and experts. This was supplemented by survey data, council data returns (for example, funded project impact, completion of cyber activities, grant usage), programme management data (for example, participation, funding, training attendance), and public data sources (for example, local authority data, council contract registries).

There were challenges relating to our approach, which are discussed throughout this report. Due to the absence of historical baseline and control group data across the programme, it has not been possible to undertake econometric analysis to evaluate the programme’s impact. Moreover, the small number of participating councils further limits the statistical power required for robust econometric assessment. Finally, many of the programme’s outcomes relate to factors that are intrinsically difficult to quantify, such as culture change within the sector.

The evaluation comprised 3 components – process, impact, and value for money:

• Process Evaluation: Evaluated how the programme delivered its objectives, covering resource availability, reach, collaboration, leadership/capability building, and lessons from delivery methods. Based on semi-structured interviews and document review
• Impact Evaluation: Evaluated the effects of the interventions, focusing on outcome achievement, attribution, causality, and unintended outcomes. Employed a theory-based approach, aligned with HM Treasury’s Magenta Book guidance, using contribution analysis. Relied primarily on qualitative evidence from interviews, supplemented by self-reported quantitative data. A multi-case study approach explored impact variations across council types (categorised by digital and cyber capabilities)
• Value for Money (VfM) Evaluation: Evaluated if resources achieved VfM, aggregating benefits, and cost data to calculate benefit-cost ratios where feasible. The 3Es framework (economy, efficiency, effectiveness) was used (HM Treasury, 2020). Analysis primarily drew on qualitative and modelled data due to limited quantitative impact data. Additionally, the Local Authority Cyber Risk Model (LACRiM) estimated benefits from lower annualised loss expectancy (ALE) from cyber attacks, which underpins the Cyber Support workstream evaluation

Overall programme evaluation

The Local Digital programme has been a valuable initiative, providing crucial support to councils and receiving strong sector backing. Through its different interventions, it has reached a significant number of councils and continues to receive high levels of support from councils and other local government stakeholders. In the context of its launch, when there was a lack of structured support for councils, it has been an important and significant initiative. The programme should be recognised for this contribution.

However, it has faced challenges in meeting some of its objectives, particularly in scaling new digital products and services nationally, with impact varying across workstreams. The programme has only been moderately successful in achieving its stated aims, with some not achieved at all at the time of the evaluation.

In general, the programme has delivered more effectively in outcome areas relating to cyber than those relating strictly to digital. Available data indicates that cyber interventions have delivered significantly greater value for money than digital interventions. This report highlights, particularly in the Process Evaluation, that this is usually because the delivery of cyber programmes was supported by the development of clear, targeted action plans, which were less common for digital projects.

Process Evaluation

There was no single delivery model or approach that was used cohesively across the programme. As a result, there is a clear contrast in the focus and scope used by different workstreams.

The report finds that the Local Digital Fund and Future Councils workstreams, in different ways, lacked the structural and strategic clarity necessary for broader impact and long-term sustainability, which was more present in the cyber workstreams. The broad focus of the digital workstreams (addressing software system challenges and digital transformation barriers, respectively) often contributed to this, with councils sometimes lacking clear, actionable plans for their digital initiatives.

Similarly, digital initiatives often aimed to tackle widespread systemic challenges without a clear roadmap for achieving sector-wide scale. Findings suggest that a more targeted approach, concentrating on a specific system or barrier, may have enabled more effective intervention design. In contrast, Cyber Support adopted a narrower, more structured delivery model, which appears to have resulted in more tangible outcomes.

Impact Evaluation

The Impact Evaluation focused on 9 core outcome areas that the programme aimed to achieve. The assessment across these 9 areas is mixed: 2 outcome areas have been achieved to a Low extent, 6 have been achieved to a Medium extent, and one has been achieved to a Medium to High extent. Taken together, this analysis shows that the programme has been moderately successful in achieving its stated aims, without comprehensively achieving any of them. These findings should be considered in conjunction with the methodological constraints mentioned above, especially with respect to the difficulty in conducting econometric analysis.

A clear theme in the Impact Evaluation is that only a small number of products and services funded by the programme have been adopted as live services within councils, and even fewer have been scaled to multiple councils. For example, only 7/61 (11%) of the projects funded by the Local Digital Fund have scaled beyond the councils that received initial funding for the project. There are a number of reasons why projects often failed to scale into live services. Evidence confirms that councils often lack technical capability to deploy and maintain open-source solutions developed by the programme. There was also often a lack of clear commercial structure or incentives for councils to take on long-term ownership of sector-wide tools.

This explains why the programme has not had a significant impact on real-life services for residents and users. It also explains why the programme has failed to drive changes in the underlying local council software market, which it sought to disrupt through introducing new products and services.

Value for Money Evaluation

The programme likely falls within the ‘Acceptable’ VfM category. Although the estimated programme BCR is 0.84 (indicating ‘Poor’ VfM), excluding workstreams without monetised data raises the BCR to 1.18. Non-monetised benefits are expected to bridge the remaining switching gap for the programme to be considered as ‘Acceptable’ VfM. This includes non-monetised, but clearly observed, benefits relating to improved digital skills, culture change, and cyber resilience.

This BCR assessment includes reasonably projected benefits, as well as those that have been directly observed. This is especially the case when assessing the Local Digital Fund, where few projects had observable impact data, and where benefits are best assessed over a longer time horizon. This is because most projects are still relatively recent (with many still being developed or implemented), and because software systems require multiple years to be fully embedded, especially when an organisation is moving away from legacy technology. In some cases, projections were made based on reviewing and adjusting individual project business cases, based on available evidence to-date. This should be considered when reviewing the overall programme BCR, as some of the benefit included in the calculation have not yet materialised.

As with the Impact Evaluation, the Value for Money Evaluation found that the digital workstreams were less cost-effective than cyber ones, particularly Cyber Support, which exhibits the highest BCR across all the workstreams. To evaluate the VfM of this workstream, the Local Authority Cyber Risk Model (LACRiM), developed as part of the evaluation, is used to estimate and monetise the losses expected from cyber attacks on local authorities.

In response to the challenges discussed in this report, the Local Digital team has adopted a renewed strategy and approach, including closing down some of its activities and funding for councils. This new strategy will focus on targeted collaboration with technology vendors, scaling a limited number of promising projects, setting national data standards, and strengthening sector-wide cyber resilience. These changes respond effectively to many of the challenges raised in this report and are expected to enhance future outcomes.

Key lessons learned across the programme

The evaluation has identified a number of lessons and recommendations for future digital and cyber initiatives. These include:

Effective monitoring, including data collection, is essential for evaluation

The evaluation faced challenges due to a lack of quantitative data, particularly historical baseline and consistently reported impact data across projects. The development of an approach for evaluating impact from intervention inception, and support for data gathering, would improve future evaluations and continuous learning.

Funding councils to collaboratively develop open-source outputs has not driven implementation at scale

As noted above, only 11% of Local Digital Fund solutions scaled. Scaled Local Digital Fund solutions, like LocalGov Drupal, required third-party ownership and support, as individual councils hesitated to assume the role of a ‘tech vendor’ – that is, being responsible for maintaining, developing, and supporting a digital product, due to the risks, skills gaps, and resource needs involved. Future interventions should assess long-term management models for sustainability.

Technical barriers in the local government software market, especially a lack of interoperability and data standards, are a barrier to the scaling of digital solutions

These challenges often exceeded individual councils’ capacity and require central government intervention beyond funding, through coordinated policy and investment in shared infrastructure. The Local Digital Fund mainly funded the development of smaller software system components, and small data interventions, which limited its ability to deliver wider software market impact. Future initiatives should pursue more focused but ambitious interventions – concentrating on fewer, high-impact systems in their entirety, rather than fragmented components spread across multiple systems.

Successful cross-council collaboration often requires third-party coordination

Without a structured approach, the evaluation of both the Local Digital Fund and Future Councils has found that efforts to share best practices and replicate initiatives are unlikely to succeed, as current council structures do not naturally foster effective collaboration. Future interventions should consider how dedicated third-party roles can facilitate ongoing collaboration and scaling of solutions.

Digital transformation processes within councils remain slow and hindered by current organisational structures

The Future Councils pilot demonstrated that internal governance and approval processes significantly delayed digital initiative deployment, indicating rapid testing models are challenging within existing council structures. Future interventions should consider these factors.

Isolated training does not lead to effective transformation as it fails to reach whole councils and extend beyond IT

While Agile Training improved individual capability, the evaluation found little evidence of broader adoption across councils. The Executive Education programme also had limited influence on leadership due to its confined scope and depth. Comprehensive cross-council digital training, involving leadership and staff beyond IT, is crucial for organisation-wide transformation.

Targeted plans with practical, prioritised actions can facilitate greater impact

The Cyber Support evaluation suggests that aligning workstream goals with clear, prioritised action plans is effective, a view councils supported as it helped them manage internal resources. This model should be scaled and applied across other interventions.

Cultural barriers present significant challenges in implementing cyber measures, sometimes proving a greater obstacle than financial constraints

Staff resistance, exemplified by Multi-Factor Authentication, or difficulties in cross-organisational collaboration for business continuity planning, highlight that addressing human factors, knowledge, and awareness is essential in improving council cyber security.

Overview of findings across workstreams

Local Digital Fund

The Local Digital Fund provided seed funding for councils to pursue specific projects, and scale them into sector-wide digital solutions. Through a competitive funding process, MHCLG awarded £16.7 million to 61 council-led projects, providing grant funding and ongoing support to council teams. Key findings are as follows.

Process

The fund was broadly well-delivered, with high levels of support from participating councils. Despite this, the evaluation identified opportunities to improve the delivery of the intervention. The application and selection process required significant resource investment from councils and lacked a clear strategic vision across funding rounds. While execution of workstream activities was generally efficient, there were some areas where duplication or a lack of join-up was identified. Finally, councils highlighted challenges with joint project delivery, particularly the reliance on individuals rather than organisations to sustain collaboration

Impact

While 31% (19/61) of funded projects resulted in implemented solutions, with 25% (15/61) currently in use, only 11% (7/61) scaled, meaning they are currently used by more than one council. This was due to existing systemic barriers (such as delays in procurement processes or internal approvals), lack of buy-in or skills needed for open-source delivery, and unclear ownership models.

Agile methodologies increased within funded teams but did not spread across entire councils.Likewise, while informal cross-council collaboration increased through the Fund, maintaining formal project partnerships outside funded activities proved difficult.

Value for Money

The Local Digital Fund is assessed as ‘Poor’ VfM as per MHCLG appraisal guidance (MHCLG, 2025), with an estimated BCR of 0.49. It generated £17 million in estimated savings, mostly from process efficiency, but only one project - LocalGov Drupal - achieved notable market impact (achieving a 14% share of the Content Management System market). The delivery model overestimated the likelihood of sector-wide scaling. Some projects remain in development, so future benefits may support an ‘Acceptable’ VfM rating (BCR between 1 and 1.5).

Future Councils

Through Future Councils, 8 councils were awarded a direct grant of £750,000 each to address common barriers to digital transformation across the sector. Alongside receiving grant funding, councils participated in research workshops to explore common challenges. Key findings are as follows.

Process

Councils welcomed flexible funding but desired more guidance and support on how to design and implement new projects. By March 2024, only 38% of budgeted funds were spent, with limited evidence of widespread impact.

Impact

Research insights informed Local Digital’s shift towards a more strategic role from 2024, focusing on establishing the conditions needed for effective digital innovation, including data standards development, supplier market interventions, and scaling of successful initiatives.

Value for Money

Future Councils has not yet demonstrated value for money, primarily due to an initial lack of clear strategic direction and limited evidence of sector-wide impact. However, emerging local successes as some councils complete funded activities – and the Local Digital team’s refocusing of digital work, informed by the Future Councils pilot – may lead to wider benefits over time, so this should be kept under review.

Cyber Support

Cyber Support is a cyber risk-mitigation fund, working with councils to identify and prioritise their greatest areas of cyber risk, and develop and deliver tailored Cyber Treatment Plans (CTPs) to mitigate these vulnerabilities. This workstream issued - between March 2021 and March 2023 – £19.9 million to 192 councils to implement CTPs. Key findings are as follows.

Process

The intervention was well-delivered, using data, resources and delivery partners effectively. The use of CTPs ensured that support from MHCLG was highly targeted and measurable, with councils benefit from specific remediation activities. The intervention has contributed to greater awareness and prioritisation of cyber within councils, but more can be done to drive long-term leadership buy-in.

Impact

83% of existing risk identified in CTPs was reduced by January 2025. This has resulted in an estimated £11 million annually in cost savings associated with fewer cyber attacks and improved incident response. CTPs cover over half (53%) of known mitigating controls against common ransomware tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), but human factors remain a key gap.

Value for Money

The workstream received a ‘High’ VfM rating, with projected monetised benefits of £63.8 million over a future 10-year period and a BCR of 2.2.

Cyber Assessment Framework

Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) is a tool developed by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). It provides a systematic and comprehensive approach to assessing whether an organisation is properly managing different cyber risks. MHCLG has funded a series of pilots to explore the possibility of rolling out CAF across the local government sector.

The evaluation has found the iterative model to be effective in identifying and addressing barriers to adoption. However, the intervention is still ongoing, and it is therefore not possible to evaluate whether it has been successful in its intention to result in sector-wide roll-out, or to assess its overall VfM rating.

Training

Between 2022 and 2023, MHCLG has provided a number of training offers to councils as part of the Local Digital programme. This has included (1) an online Training Library with links to external resources, (2) Agile Training for council staff, and (3) an Executive Education programme for senior local government officers. Key findings are as follows.

Process

Feedback on the effectiveness of the delivery of the programme varied across participants. Some participants and staff members found that the course content was generic and lacked adaptation to local government context, without clear grounding in real-life tasks and workflows. Despite the approach of having multiple councils participate in the training together, there is no evidence of sustained or widespread networks or collaboration beyond the initial courses.

Impact

Agile Training participants improved their confidence in Agile working as a result of this course (64% confidence increase). However, adoption largely remained with individuals, not spreading across entire councils.

Value for Money

The delivery model and reach of the workstream did not achieve its intended outcomes of widespread adoption of Agile or leadership prioritisation of digital transformation. Consequently, despite individual-level gains, available evidence indicates that workstream did not deliver good value for money at the sector level.