Research and analysis

North of Tyne UKSPF evaluation: interim findings

Updated 3 December 2025

Applies to England

Executive summary: North of Tyne 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.

This interim report presents the emerging findings from the place level evaluation of UKSPF in the North of Tyne (NoT, covering the local authority areas of Newcastle, Northumberland and North of Tyne), based on research conducted between November 2024 and February 2025. It outlines the progress made to date and presents interim evaluation findings.

Key process evaluation findings

Intervention design

• Stakeholders interviewed agreed that the intervention identification process was generally positive, with strong co-design with a wide range of public, private and voluntary sector stakeholders, alongside a robust review of evidence, to ensure that interventions reflected local community needs.
• However, tight timescales for intervention design posed challenges, causing some slippage of activity into years 2 (2023/24) and 3 (2024/25). In addition, an initial lack of clarity from MHCLG about outputs and outcomes caused some delays as the Combined Authority (CA) identified what types of intervention would be in or out of scope.

Portfolio implementation

• The NoT is delivering a wide range of activities across the investment priorities. Communities and Place interventions were developed to support inclusive economic growth in the area. The Supporting Local Businesses investment priority has the broad objective of supporting organisations’ growth, innovation and enterprise, and People and Skills interventions support investment in employability and skills provision to create a more inclusive labour market, support residents furthest away from employment, and remove barriers that prevent people from accessing and sustaining work.
• Many potential suppliers across the investment priorities were engaged, via the consultation process for the Investment Plan, and involved in meetings and events to provide their feedback on the CA’s plans for UKSPF activities.
• Mechanisms for selecting providers, include open calls for tender, a Dynamic Purchasing System, and an existing skills framework.
• Evidence indicates that procurement and contract management has worked effectively, with stakeholders appreciating the regular communications between the CA, local authorities and providers, and the clear and transparent routes for commissioning and procurement.

Intervention delivery

• The partnership approach to delivery and the flexibility in designing interventions were seen as key enablers for progress.
• Challenges included limited resources for robust delivery and governance measures, and concerns about staff retention due to short funding timescales.

Data collection and monitoring

• Evidence suggests that the data collection and monitoring processes are generally working well, and for most interventions seen as proportionate and more flexible than previous schemes (e.g. European Structural Funds).
• However, there were some concerns from programme stakeholders that data collection to evidence outputs and outcomes achievement was onerous, particularly for very small, volunteer-led organisations/community groups.

Programme oversight

• NoT has a Project Assurance Team, which leads on intervention appraisal, contract management and monitoring of the UKSPF investments, as well as the collation and reporting of performance data to MHCLG.
• The three local authorities have management and oversight of the interventions that they commission. Their roles include developing the business cases for interventions, putting out the calls for tender, and overseeing monitoring and evaluation of all contracts (before passing information on to the Project Assurance Team).

Progress to date: expenditure, outputs and outcomes

Analysis of spend data indicated that there was some slippage in expenditure, with less spend than anticipated in year 1 (2022/23) and year 2 (2023/24). This was due to delays in the funding decisions made by MHCLG. Data for year 3 was not available at the time of reporting so the final analysis of expenditure will be covered in the final report.

There some discrepancies in the data held by MHCLG and NoT. The NoT data is presented here as it was the most up to date at time of reporting.

In terms of outputs, performance has been particularly strong for People and Skills interventions (87% of targets achieved as of February 2025) and Supporting Local Businesses (80% of targets achieved). Communities and Place interventions were more mixed, and demonstrated strong performance in relation to tourism related outputs.

In terms of outcomes, Communities and Place interventions have also achieved well for tourism-related targets. Progress has been slower for Supporting Local Businesses and People and Skills outcomes, this is in part due to a time-lag in outcomes reporting.

Early impact findings

At the time of reporting, limited evidence was available to assess the impact of UKSPF in the North of Tyne. The outcomes and overall impact will be explored in greater depth in the final evaluation report.