Research and analysis

Blaby UKSPF evaluation: impact and value for money findings – executive summary

Updated 28 August 2026

Applies to England

Introduction

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) was launched by the UK Government in April 2022. It provided £2.6 billion funding for local investment by March 2025, with an additional £900 million available for 2025-26. Local decision-makers worked with their local communities and partners to deliver interventions under three investment priorities: Communities and Place, Supporting Local Businesses, and People and Skills. UKSPF empowered places to identify and build on their own local strengths and needs, with a focus on enhancing community pride and increasing life chances.

Blaby received £2.1 million of funding for UKSPF for the period 2022/23 to 2024/25 across two investment priorities: Communities and Place (£1.8 million), Supporting Local Businesses (£0.2 million), with a single People and Skills project (£15,000). An additional £0.7 million was allocated for 2025/26 which falls outside this study’s scope.

Altogether, UKSPF interventions in Blaby aimed to increase local economic opportunity, promote community pride, and improve residents’ wellbeing. Due to the wide range of investment activities within Blaby’s UKSPF portfolio, the evaluation report covers a sample of interventions in more detail.

The district of Blaby is in the county of Leicestershire, five miles south west of Leicester city centre. The northern part of the district is predominantly urban, while the southern part has several villages with rural characteristics. Blaby’s population has grown at a faster rate than the East Midlands and national averages, and a significant portion of this growth is among 65-year-olds and older. Public health and physical inactivity are a growing concern. Blaby ranks fourth lowest (22%) in terms of physical inactivity among districts in Leicestershire.^{[footnote 1]}

Blaby is relatively affluent with a higher-than-average employment rate, yet a significant portion of its economy is concentrated in a few sectors. Professional, scientific and technical activities, wholesale and retail, public administration, and defence account for 44% of employee jobs in Blaby, compared to just 28% in England. Business births and survival are key challenges. From 2011 to 2020, Blaby experienced a 25% growth in the number of enterprises, which is below the average growth rate of 34% for England and 28% for Leicestershire.^{[footnote 2]} Businesses in Blaby are also more likely to fail in their second year than the regional and national averages.

Key impact evaluation findings

Communities and Place

Increased physical activity

UKSPF funding supported an increase in physical activity among residents. UKSPF funding supported the creation of a one-year post for an Active Referral officer within the Council. In 2023, they referred 1,340 cases to other external services which supported people to lead an active lifestyle, up from 670 cases referred in the year before UKSPF funding became available.

One example of a service that individuals were referred was another UKSPF funded project in Blaby, called Blue Prescribing. Delivered by the Canal & River Trust (CRT), this project provided opportunities for residents in Blaby to participate in various group activities, such as walking, paddleboarding, and canoeing. Monitoring data indicates that 230 Blaby residents participated in group, nature-based sport and recreation activities. A survey with participants suggests an improvement in overall physical activity, with 18 out of 20 reporting that the sessions improved their physical fitness. Nearly all respondents (18 out of 19 respondents) indicated that the Blue Prescribing sessions had positively influenced their overall perception about physical activity, while 21 out of 24 respondents said that their participation motivated them to become more physically active outside of the scheduled sessions.

Improvements in mental health

Five schools in Blaby (two primary and three secondary) received UKSPF funded mental health support services for children and young people. Individuals received support from trained Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners (CWPs) through one-to-one weekly sessions over the course of 6-8 weeks. Around 378 sessions were delivered, supporting 54 individuals in total. Monitoring data shared by the delivery provider suggest that almost all (49 participants, 91%) indicated that they felt more positive about themselves after the end of the intervention. All children and young people said they would recommend the intervention to their peers. Similarly, participants of the Blue Prescribing project reported that participating in the sport sessions improved their mental health and wellbeing.

Supporting Local Businesses

No measurable improvements to business performance and business survival rates in the district could be determined with confidence across the full sample, although testimonials and case studies demonstrate examples of positive impacts. The light-touch nature of support and the influence of parallel interventions made it challenging to trace and evidence outcomes across all supported businesses.

Key economic evaluation findings

The UKSPF programme in Blaby demonstrated high value for money across the 4Es framework.

• Economy – Adequate: By and large, delivery in Blaby was within budget, on schedule, and of the expected quality; however, there were exceptions that led to implementation delays or a shift in focus on meeting output targets at the expense of quality of support service. There were no significant areas for improvement, although greater use of competitive tender processes for external delivery partners may have been beneficial.
• Efficiency – Adequate: The monitoring data suggests that UKSPF funding delivered a high number of various outputs across many different areas. Some UKSPF projects were also delivered more efficiently compared to similar schemes, although an assessment against each project was not possible. However, output targets were not reported in Blaby’s monitoring returns which prevented us from benchmarking achievements against pre-determined goals.
• Effectiveness – Adequate: Blaby has made good progress delivering outcomes, although a robust assessment of all projects was not possible due to lack of monitoring data and difficulties encountered by the research team in reaching beneficiaries. Outcome targets were not reported in Blaby’s monitoring returns which prevented us from benchmarking achievements against pre-determined goals.
• Equity - High: Interventions were designed to benefit the general population or vulnerable groups in need of support (e.g. individuals with mental health conditions). The use of varied and inclusive engagement approaches during the consultation activities helped secure broad participation across the community.

Key learning

The following key learning and lessons have been identified, which will support design and delivery of future local growth funds:

• It is important to allow sufficient time for local planning and project delivery. Future programmes need to provide enough time for investment planning to prevent rushed consultations and decisions. Similarly, project delivery would benefit from longer timelines to allow time for project setup, including procurement and staff recruitment for project implementation. Stakeholder feedback suggests that a multi-year funding model would provide greater stability and planning security for delivery providers, unlike the sequential bidding process which took place annually.
• A fragmented delivery model can impede successful programme-level monitoring. One of the key lessons learnt from the delivery of Year 1 and 2 UKSPF interventions in Blaby was the importance of having a centralised system and a point of contact who could bring together individual officers from different teams within the BDC working group. Adopting a centralised approach brings more consistency across teams within the council and clarity on project and programme level performance.

1. Active Lives Adult Survey: November 2022/23, https://www.active-together.org/researchandevidence/active-lives-adult-survey-2022-23-report-llr-headlines/download ↩

2. Annual Economic Profile – Blaby District, https://llep.org.uk/app/uploads/2021/06/Blaby-2021.pdf ↩