Research and analysis

East Riding of Yorkshire UKSPF evaluation: interim findings

Updated 3 December 2025

Applies to England

Executive summary: East Riding of Yorkshire interim findings

Introduction

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) provides a total of £3.5 billion of funding for local investment over 4 years (2022 to 2026), with all places in the UK receiving an allocation via a funding formula. Local decision-makers work with their local communities and partners to deliver interventions under three investment priorities: Communities and Place, Supporting Local Businesses and People and Skills. East Riding of Yorkshire Local Authority received a total of £10.4 million of UKSPF funding over the period from April 2022 to March 2025 across the different investment priorities.

This interim report presents the emerging findings from the place level evaluation of UKSPF in East Riding of Yorkshire, based on research conducted between November 2024 and March 2025. It outlines the progress made to date and presents interim evaluation findings.

Key process evaluation findings

Intervention design

• UKSPF enabled East Riding of Yorkshire to exercise greater flexibility, proactive management, and autonomy over spending when compared to previous European funding.
• Across all priorities, interventions were designed based on ongoing local needs and built on successes from previous European funding.
• For Communities and Place, evidence and data collected to inform town centre action plans and post Covid-19 recovery efforts was used to ensure that spending reflected local needs.
• For the Supporting Local Businesses priority, a triage system aimed to ensure that businesses identified appropriate holistic support and external contractors were brought in to provide more specialist assistance. To deliver the Supporting Local Businesses priority, East Riding of Yorkshire consolidated existing support to create a streamlined service.
• For People and Skills, existing partnerships developed under European funding were utilised. Interventions were designed to maximise engagement and reach and focused on providing flexible and accessible support to reduce barriers to work such as mental and physical health.

Intervention delivery

• Pipeline projects that pre-dated UKSPF funding and those that had previously been developed as part of town action planning and post Covid-19 regeneration efforts were prioritised for delivery in year one (2022/23) due to short delivery time frames.
• Interventions under the Communities and Place investment priority were delivered in-house. This was successful due to effective planning, preparation, investment in upskilling personnel, and previous experience in managing large government funds.
• As part of Communities and Place grant initiatives East Riding of Yorkshire Local Authority provided a range of support, including webinars, bid writing support, workshops and one-to-one help, to reduce barriers to funding and strengthen community capacity.
• People and Skills delivery partners adapted workshops to maximise access and to enhance engagement, this included a flexible service offer to support people with busy schedules and/or complex needs. Workshops were co-produced with previous participants to improve support and effectively meet the needs of beneficiaries.
• The Supporting Local Businesses priority operated a holistic model to working with businesses. Support was delivered internally by business experts where possible, with more specialist and bespoke support commissioned based on demand.

Data collection and monitoring:

• Quarterly performance reports ensured effective reporting and performance management. Delivery organisations generally found the process manageable, with support from the UKSPF Programme Team.
• East Riding of Yorkshire local authority has an experienced team with a strong track record of managing government funding. This meant they had well-established internal systems and processes.
• Larger organisations and those with previous experience of managing government funding found data and monitoring requirements straightforward compared to micro-businesses and community groups who were less familiar with these requirements and found them more challenging.
• Many community groups and micro-businesses required significant support throughout the grant process from application to project execution. Although the local authority allocated capacity funding to enable closer working with these groups, high demand and inexperience meant that this absorbed a significant amount of resource.

Progress to date: expenditure, outputs and outcomes

The total allocation of UKSPF for East Riding of Yorkshire was £10.4 million for April 2022 to March 2025. Analysis of spend to date shows a slow start to spending in year one (2022/23) compared to subsequent years, due to short timescales.

Supporting Local Businesses and People and Skills show strong performance. There was a more mixed picture for Communities and Place, where the target for the number of feasibility studies has been achieved and almost all output targets for green or blue space created or improved were met, however, fewer than half of the forecast outputs for number of organisations receiving grants has been achieved to date.

Under Supporting Local Businesses a high number of decarbonisation plans, and low and net zero infrastructure were achieved. This was driven by businesses seeking to cut costs and benefit from reduced energy bills. External experts provided effective energy advice. Outputs associated with support for entrepreneurs, start-ups and businesses looking to enter new markets also performed well.

People and Skills projects linked to employment support and helping individuals with complex health barriers performed well, as did efforts to provide employment/job retention support and qualifications, and increased participation in education and job searching.

The Communities and Place priority led to increased footfall outcomes, due to local events and public space improvements. The Supporting Local Businesses priority achieved several outcomes including targets for carbon dioxide equivalent reduction, and productivity. Interviewees suggested that strong progress is expected across employment-related outcomes due to support leading to business growth and expansion. For People and Skills, no outcomes were reported in the monitoring data, however, interviewees suggested that interventions were likely to deliver a positive future impact, specifically with respect to reducing economic inactivity, reduced isolation and improved wellbeing. Across all priorities, more time is required for outcomes to be realised and further research is needed to measure these effectively.

Early impact findings

Early signs of impact are emerging for Supporting Local Businesses, although further research with business beneficiaries is needed to verify these. For example, Invest East Yorkshire was reported to have received strong engagement, service demand and provided a broad range of meaningful support to meet business needs resulting in business and employment growth.

Pipeline projects, many of which were delivered in year one (2022/23) under the Communities in Place priority, were reported to be delivering significant benefits to local communities. Given the characteristics of these pipeline projects, impact is expected in terms of community pride and sense of belonging, inclusivity and accessibility. Further research will target community beneficiaries to gather views and validate impacts. It is difficult to detect early impacts under the People and Skills priority, this is partly due to lack of research with beneficiaries and absence of outcome data at this stage.

Although several areas demonstrate promise, a more detailed exploration of key impacts in the final phase of the evaluation is needed. This will include beneficiary interviews with businesses who have received financial and non-financial support, community organisations who have benefited from grant funding, and persons who have received employment and/or training. Surveys to gather views of the local community and to assess benefits associated with Communities and Place interventions are also planned.