Research and analysis

North Wales UKSPF evaluation: interim findings

Updated 3 December 2025

Applies to Wales

Executive summary: North Wales 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 3 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 North Wales, based on research conducted between September 2024 and February 2025. It outlines the progress made to date and presents interim evaluation findings.

Key process evaluation findings

Intervention design

• The UKSPF interventions in North Wales were designed within a cohesive regional strategic framework while allowing local authorities to tailor projects according to local area need. The 6 local authorities jointly developed the Investment Plan, ensuring alignment with both regional economic strategies and specific local socio-economic priorities.
• A standardised but locally adaptable open call process led by each of the six local authorities allowed both external partners and local authorities to propose interventions. This resulted in a mix of delivery models, with over a third of projects in North Wales led by local authorities and the rest delivered by external third party providers. This helped to leverage sectoral expertise while maintaining local relevance.

Portfolio implementation

• Targeting, marketing and outreach helped to distribute funding effectively, but had limited reach beyond known networks. The restrictive timescales of UKSPF made it difficult for the local authorities to establish new connections, but the Key Funds provided a useful entry point for less experienced organisations.
• The open call process ensured consistency across the six local authorities, with shared timelines and decision-making structures. However, demand significantly exceeded available funding in each of the six local authorities, which resulted in a heavy administrative burden particularly during the Expression of Interest stage, which was used to filter out unsuitable projects.

Intervention delivery

• Local authorities adopted a flexible, demand-led approach, aligning funding priorities with existing strategic plans. This ensured that projects targeted emerging socio-economic needs, rather than predetermined categories. However, this may have been one of the reasons leading to the programme being heavily oversubscribed across North Wales.
• The Key Fund mechanism successfully opened up UKSPF funding to smaller community organisations, enabling them to deliver projects directly aligned to the needs of local communities.
• Short funding timescales led to a range of delivery challenges including recruitment difficulties, and delays to capital projects due to incompatibility with construction procurement processes which led to scaled back or revised ambitions to ensure projects were completed within a challenging timescale.

Data collection and monitoring

• The regional and local 2-tier monitoring approach was generally well-received, with Cyngor Gwynedd managing all monitoring and claims processes through a structured centralised system, while local authorities maintained direct relationships with project delivery leads. This balance ensured consistency in reporting while allowing flexibility for local problem-solving and support.
• The centralised approach placed considerable administrative pressure on the Regional Team’s capacity, leading to some delays in processing change requests and responding to queries. Variability in project reporting quality and difficulties in measuring intangible outcomes also created some challenges in project monitoring and reporting.

Programme oversight

• The North Wales Collaboration Board provided strong strategic oversight of the UKSPF Programme, ensuring decisions were made collectively across the region.

Multiply

• Multiply was implemented through a range of approaches across North Wales, with a mix of third sector providers, colleges, and local authorities delivering tailored numeracy support. Wrexham (and to a smaller extent Conwy) used Key Funds to support small, community-led projects while other areas partnered with trusted local organisations.
• Demand for Multiply projects in North Wales was lower than expected. Existing Welsh Government initiatives such as the Wales Essential Skills Tool (WEST) programme already provided numeracy support, leading to competition for participants.

Progress to date: expenditure, outputs and outcomes

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) in North Wales was allocated a total core budget of £126.46 million, across 3 investment priorities:

• £56.69 million for Communities and Place
• £24.83 million for Supporting Local Businesses
• £25.52 million for People and Skills
• £15.24 million allocated for Multiply

A report compiled by Cyngor Gwynedd in April 2024 (covering up to the end of the financial year 2023/24) indicates that North Wales as a whole reported £42.91 million of funding spent by year end 2023/24. At that stage most of the funding had been committed (£120.75 million of the £126.46 million or 96%), but actual spent was 56% below its profiled expenditure by that point (£77.24 million).

Outputs: Early delivery of outputs in the North Wales UKSPF programme varies by investment priority. People and Skills interventions show greatest progress with 29% of output targets met by September 2024, followed by Community and Place (27%). Supporting Local Businesses (16%) and Multiply (6%) have progressed more slowly. While some interventions are on track, other lag due to delayed starts and longer capital project timelines.

Outcomes: Early data shows mixed progress, some targets such as increased footfall and business engagement have been met or exceeded, while others lag. Stakeholders anticipate that outcomes, particularly those related to business decarbonisation, third sector sustainability, job creation, and wellbeing improvements will emerge only after outputs are achieved and beyond the conclusion of the Programme.

Early impact findings

Initial analysis suggests early signs of impact across the evaluation themes, although it is important to note that these findings are based on project lead survey responses and stakeholder interviews, and do not yet reflect fully measured impacts.

• For community empowerment and the voluntary sector: evidence collected to data indicates improvements in local community assets and infrastructure, with survey responses and stakeholder interviews highlighting positive emerging impacts in increased provision of play and leisure facilities.
• For business decarbonisation: early data suggests limited impacts on carbon reductions, with 5 tonnes of CO2 saved, though 52% of businesses reported improvements in energy efficiency following infrastructure investments.
• For “soft skills” development: the programme is showing incremental progress of people gaining employment and economically inactive individuals engaging in skills training. While these early signs are positive, it is still too early to determine the full impact, and results will be more accurately assessed at the impact evaluation stage.

The outcomes and impact of UKSPF in North Wales will be explored in more depth in the final evaluation report.