Research and analysis

Evaluation of the Community Renewal Fund 2021/22: performance and processes - executive summary

Published 13 December 2023

The £220 million UK Community Renewal Fund (CRF) provided funding between November 2021 and December 2022. Contributing to the levelling-up agenda, it invested in people, places, businesses and communities with an aim to improve everyday life across the UK.

This was additional funding provided in order to help areas with the transition between EU Structural Funds and the launch of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). The CRF was a short-term fund and sought to support local areas to pilot programmes and innovative approaches, aligning with national and local provision.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) set out 2 key objectives:

• to provide additional funding to support our communities to pilot programmes and new approaches; and
• to help local areas to prepare over 2021–22 for the introduction of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) — recognising this as a new way of working between the UK Government and lead authorities.

The scope of this evaluation was to analyse:

• programme performance, including finance and outputs;
• effectiveness of delivery and management systems and processes; and
• outcomes of programme investments.

This involved analysis of programme performance data, more than 300 project evaluations (of variable depth and robustness) provided by lead authorities, and detailed analysis of 21 of the higher-quality project evaluations.

As such, this evaluation does not include a quantitative assessment of the impact of the CRF relative to what might have happened had the CRF not been in place. The quantitative elements of the research are limited to an assessment of the delivered outputs of the projects. Thus, information on the net impact of the CRF is not available.

Programme performance

The programme spent £186 million (93%) of the £199 million funding contracted across 466 projects, with all projects completing delivery within a period of up to 13 months.

The programme supported outputs^{[footnote 1]} for:

• more than 390,000 individuals
• over 50,000 businesses
• more than 23,000 organisations.

Overall, the programme met (or achieved over 95% of) outcome^{[footnote 2]}targets for indicators relating to the completion of plans and studies (including innovation plans, decarbonisation plans, and feasibility studies). Outcome targets relating to individuals (such as those gaining a qualification or moving into employment) and businesses supported (such as those introducing new products or increasing employment) were mixed, with some indicator targets met and exceeded, but others falling short. Most achieved at least 75% of their target; those falling further short mostly related to outcome indicators that were not deliverable within the timescales of CRF programme delivery. Due to the limited timescales for CRF project evaluation, some outcomes and impacts will continue to accrue after the completion of the evaluation.  

In many cases, programme performance was affected by the ongoing impact of COVID-19 with respect to national regulations, as well as impacts on business and individual behaviours.

Effectiveness of delivery and management

The CRF programme was launched in March 2021 as a competitive process for which all places in Great Britain were eligible to apply. Designated local and combined authorities (lead authorities) invited bids from a range of project applicants. Using their local insight, knowledge, and DLUHC guidance, they each appraised and produced a shortlist of priority projects with a combined value of up to a maximum of £3 million per place before submitting this to the UK Government. The DLUHC assessed bids and selected projects based on the published assessment criteria.  

In Great Britain, to level up and create opportunity across the UK for people and places, 100 priority places were identified based on being the least resilient in an index of economic resilience developed by the government^{[footnote 3]}. These received financial support to aid the bidding process and had higher priority during bid appraisal.

Overall, the CRF funded a broad spectrum of projects across business, skills, employment and place themes. Many developed new partnership approaches, although there was limited evidence of innovative approaches being trialled, with local stakeholders opting for ‘safe’ established approaches, rather than innovative approaches, due to tight timeframes during project development.

Due to the volume of bids and the short-term ‘one-off’ nature of the fund, the DLUHC provided less feedback on the assessment outcomes in comparison with EU Structural Funds programmes. Many lead authorities, however, wanted greater transparency and feedback as to why certain bids were unsuccessful.

Most lead authorities and Northern Ireland project leads indicated that delays in the DLUHC announcing successful projects following appraisals negatively affected delivery. Delays led to: a loss of match funding (by pushing delivery into an additional financial year), uncertainty surrounding staffing (impacting retention), and a negative effect on the delivery of projects aligned with seasonal conditions or an academic year.

A flat rate of 2% of the total value of funding received by lead authorities could be spent on administration (increasing to 3% in certain circumstances). This funding covered costs relating to contracting with project deliverers, ongoing management and monitoring of projects, and gathering and assuring financial and performance indicator data for submission to the government.

The scale of this funding met resourcing needs for around half of the lead authorities, but for just over one third it was felt to be insufficient. Extended delivery periods, complex projects, and intensive assurance approaches contributed to higher costs for some.

Lead authorities mostly drew on their own established approaches in setting up management of the CRF. The main challenges faced were the need for dedicated contract management staff (which many felt as though they had lacked sufficient time or resource to introduce) and setting up a proportionate assurance approach for spend and performance indicators.

Through CRF delivery, most lead authorities (53%) reported that their structures and processes had been refined and improved ahead of the delivery of the UKSPF. Most also identified that CRF projects had helped their understanding of local needs and challenges (53%) and provided learning with which to inform their UKSPF investment plans (54%).

Programme outcomes and impacts

A robust impact evaluation was not deemed to be feasible or proportionate for the CRF to analyse whether outcomes could be directly attributed to the intervention, due to the short-term nature of the scheme, the devolved evaluation approach, and the diverse range of investment and beneficiary types.

The main findings regarding outcomes and impacts in this evaluation are drawn from synthesising qualitative and quantitative findings from project evaluations, which were required from every project receiving funding (other than those solely undertaking feasibility studies).

The programme supported a broad spectrum of beneficiary types (including different types of organisations, businesses and individuals) and associated outcome types (including those relating to individuals’ advancement towards enhanced skills or employment, business growth, and organisational development). Satisfaction with support received, as reported by beneficiaries, averaged over 70% across all intervention types where this information was provided.

Delivery success in local growth projects is highly project-specific, relating to the nature of the challenge faced, the intervention applied, and local delivery context factors.

Key factors associated with successful CRF projects included: proactive beneficiary recruitment approaches, a project design which was targeted at local needs, flexibility of the support offer to respond to bespoke needs of beneficiaries, the strength of delivery partnerships, and scheduling support activity in a flexible way to fit around beneficiaries’ wider commitments.

Common barriers included tight delivery timescales, cashflow challenges for smaller delivery partners, unrealistic performance indicator targets distorting delivery plans, and the lack of a detailed project-level theory of change and intervention logic.

Lessons for future programmes

The findings from the CRF programme evaluation highlight a range of lessons that can be applied to the design and delivery of future national programmes to support local growth:

• Lesson 1: National programmes to support local growth interventions need longer-term funding assurance.
• Lesson 2: Where future programmes are used as a short-term capacity-building fund ahead of a larger successor fund, a more strategic approach (for example, an allocation of funding to all Lead Authority areas) could enable greater effectiveness.
• Lesson 3: A national programme for local growth needs to clearly define the intended outcomes of funded interventions to enhance strategic impact.
• Lesson 4: The breadth of eligible activities and the ability to support a more holistic project design (for example, combining interventions supporting businesses, individuals and places in a single project) should be retained in future programmes.
• Lesson 5: National funding competitions as well as centralised appraisal can lead to ineffective decision making regarding which projects should be funded to deliver local growth interventions. A more strategic role for local authorities could improve decision making in a local area.
• Lesson 6: One year is often too short a period for effective and impactful delivery of local growth projects.
• Lesson 7: More time and greater support are needed to ensure the quality of local growth project development.
• Lesson 8: Further guidance to encourage and enable cross-boundary projects across Lead Authority areas under future funds would be beneficial.
• Lesson 9: A more detailed and more comprehensive monitoring framework and assurance process are needed to improve robust tracking of project and programme achievements.
• Lesson 10: Whilst rigorous impact evaluation in local growth funds is challenging, it is important to design it into such funds from the outset to understand the impacts of interventions.

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1. Outputs are directly linked to who has been supported and the support that they have received. ↩

2. Outcomes are the consequence of support provided by the project. ↩

3. Details of the prioritisation methodology are published at: UK Community Renewal Fund: prioritisation of places methodology note. ↩