Research and analysis

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

Updated 28 August 2026

Applies to Wales

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. Mid Wales received £42.4 million of UKSPF funding, including £35.1 million of core and a further £7.3 million of Multiply funding.

Mid Wales covers the local authority areas of Ceredigion and Powys, forming one of four economic regions in Wales. Home to only 207,400 people, which is 7% of Wales’s population, it is the most rural of those economic regions with the second largest land area at 1,930 square miles. There are no cities in Mid Wales with Aberystwyth being the most populated town with 12,250 residents. Mid Wales is characterised by a predominantly rural economy reliant on agriculture and tourism. The business base is dominated by micro and small sized businesses with relatively few large-scale employers in the region.

Key impact evaluation findings

Communities and Place

The impact evaluation focused on two types of Communities and Place investments: enhancements to green spaces (such as creating play and nature parks or improving paths and public rights of way) and improvements to leisure facilities, including the installation or upgrading of 3G pitches.

UKSPF funding improved facilities that meet local demand, resulting in increased usage

MI data indicated an increase of 5,000 users as a result of investments in leisure centre 3G pitches. Secondary data collected by Ceredigion County Council also pointed to increases in usage (and memberships at some sites) following UKSPF investments. Your Community, Your Say survey data for postcodes around two sites that received UKSPF investment (Tremont Park Play and Nature Park and Welsh Wildlife Centre), indicated some increase in usage. Interviews with both project leads and onsite fieldwork with local site users supported the notion that investments helped to make areas more attractive and welcoming which helped increase usage.

Improvements to public places led to improved perception of the local area

Evidence from the Your Community, Your Say survey provided the clearest quantitative indication of perception change, with 44% of residents near the Welsh Wildlife Centre reporting increased satisfaction with local green space compared with 12 months ago, versus only 2% reporting a decline. At Tremont Play and Nature Park, improvements produced a more modest effect, with 17% more satisfied and 4% less. Insights collected during site visits reinforced these findings: residents at both sites described the improved spaces as safer, more welcoming, and better maintained. Welsh Wildlife Centre users highlighed renewed appreciation of the site’s natural environment and Tremont Park users noted the transformation of a previously underused field into a valued play and community space.

Supporting Local Businesses

The impact evaluation focused on three business support grants that operated across Mid Wales. In Powys, there were two projects, one which focused on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises to grow, and the other supporting entrepreneurs to create new enterprises. In Ceredigion, a single project provided both growth and start up grants.

Business support programmes supported growth for beneficiary businesses

Survey findings offered the strongest evidence that grants to businesses helped drive growth. In a survey of businesses, 74% of respondents reported increased turnover with almost all attributing at least part of this increase to the activities undertaken with the grant. This was supported by interviews with project leads and strategic stakeholders who spoke of grants supporting a range of activities that lead to growth.

Business support enabled businesses to hire new staff

Programme MI data indicated 324 jobs were created by interventions that strengthened local entrepreneurial ecosystems and supported businesses with a substantial proportion of these expected to be from the three grant projects. Survey evidence pointed to the role of grants in increasing employee numbers. Almost half of businesses (47% or 39/83) reported an increase in their employee count since receiving the grant. This equated to 48 jobs being created by the 25 businesses that provided information on employee count before and after the grant. Survey findings and interviews with project leads appeared to support the mechanisms of change inherent in the Theory of Change that business grants enable activities that can lead to increased sales and lead to the need for additional staff.

Business support programmes supported the establishment of new businesses

MI data indicated 138 new enterprises had been created by the programme. Survey data indicated the business support grants played a leading role in the creation of new enterprises. All but one of the 22 survey respondents that intended to use the grant to start up a new business confirmed they had started trading. 17 respondents said that the grant enabled them to increase the scale of the investment and sped up the timeframes, with the remaining five saying they would not have made the investment at all, without this support. Project leads interviews and survey evidence suggested the grants played an important role in freeing up cashflow in the early stages of trading and provided business with confidence to invest through financial backing.

Key economic evaluation findings

The UKSPF programme in Mid Wales demonstrated adequate value for money across the 4Es framework.

• Economy – Adequate: The commissioning of 180 projects and positive stakeholder feedback indicate that the programme attracted a broad supplier base, supported further by umbrella schemes that enabled smaller organisations to participate. Procurement and award processes were viewed as thorough and well-structured, however, limited data on the total number of applications meant it was not possible to assess how competitive or selective the commissioning process was.
• Efficiency – Adequate: Performance against output targets was mixed across all Investment Priorities and the processes for managing underperformance was unclear. Stakeholders suggested the mixed performance may be a reflection of weaknesses in the initial target-setting process rather than delivery alone. Despite this, the programme delivered business support outputs at competitive unit costs when compared to benchmarks.
• Effectiveness – Adequate: Outcome achievement varied considerably across the three Investment Priorities. Communities and Place met or exceeded ten of 15 outcome indicators, Supporting Local Businesses met or exceeded six of 16, and People and Skills only met one of seven. Outcome delivery was constrained by the compressed timescales and the natural lag between outputs and outcomes materialising. Full local authority autonomy of their spend allocations meant relatively few projects operated across the whole region, potentially limiting the scale of impact.
• Equity – Adequate: Interventions were well aligned with regional needs and largely effective in reaching the intended beneficiary groups. Stakeholders agreed the interventions and the programme’s target groups were appropriate and reflected key regional challenges in relation to rural poverty, digital exclusion, environmental challenges and needs of small businesses.

Key learning

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

• Local growth funds require longer lead in times to enable programmes to be designed as effectively as possible.
• Local partnerships with broad representation in each local authority strengthened decision-making. This provided high levels of local autonomy, ensured that decisions were informed by a wide range of perspectives and aligned with local priorities.
• Future programmes should establish better processes to support applicants seeking to deliver regionwide initiatives.
• Targets should be developed using robust data and latest best practice on value for money appraisal to ensure they provide a realistic and accurate measure to compare performance.
• The use of umbrella grant scheme projects was effective in enabling smaller community groups and businesses to access and benefit from UKSPF support.
• Improvements to green spaces and facilities can deliver benefits both in relation to increases in usage and perceptions of local areas where investments are aligned with local priorities and needs.
• Business support grants are effective in encouraging and de-risking businesses making investments and can lead to job creation, economic growth and the creation of new enterprises.