What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth

📢What Works Growth Director Henry Overman appointed to Industrial Strategy Advisory Council The council will be an independent body which will inform and monitor the development and delivery of the government’s industrial strategy. Read more 👇 https://loom.ly/1lASzzU

BLOG | Meeting places where they are📍 Head of Outreach, Megan Streb, joined the Board of Directors of the Institute for Economic Development last week. In this blog, she reflects on how being a Director of IED fits with her wider aim of supporting places by meeting them where they are. Read the blog 👇 https://loom.ly/5nNRGXM

Do you have transport projects that you are considering evaluating? 🚇 Our new proforma helps you assess the feasibility of impact evaluation and identify the best approach. The proforma will help you understand how the language of impact evaluation relates to your project, will ensure that you systematically consider the different evaluation options, and help you identify what data is available. If impact evaluation isn’t feasible, the proforma makes suggestions about other types of research and evaluation that you might want to consider. Find out more 👇 https://loom.ly/DjZgMgo

📌Increasing the likelihood that policies can be evaluated Most local growth policies – in the UK and elsewhere – are not evaluated. This makes learning ‘what works’ difficult and means public resources may not be spent in the most cost-effective way. Read our latest blog 👇 https://loom.ly/GyWlTPs

EVENT | Thinking through boosting local investment 📈 What is the impact of low business investment on the local economy? What are the policy levers available to local growth to address low investment? Register your place 👇 https://loom.ly/WGbfonQ

📝Designing local growth policies to facilitate robust programme-level impact evaluation Programme-level evaluation assesses the overall impact of a programme on its intended outcomes. For example, the impact of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund or Levelling Up Fund, or an innovation fund at the MCA level. We’ve just published a briefing that outlines four features that can help facilitate programme-level impact evaluation of local growth policies. 1️⃣Firstly, focus the policy on a narrow range of interventions and outcomes. This makes data collection and analysis easier, reduces the risk of multiple hypothesis testing, and make it easier to construct a comparison group. 2️⃣Secondly, make sure policy design allows a comparison group to be established. Some examples include phased roll out of funding, allocating funding in different intensities, or using a cut-off for funding eligibility. These choices can be politically difficult for local growth policies. 3️⃣Thirdly, consider whether the evaluation will have statistical power - the number of observations matters. More observations is better, increasing the likelihood of getting statistically significant results which accurately reflect whether the policy has positive, negative or no effects. 4️⃣Fourthly (and finally), check the programme is big enough to have detectable effects. Where a policy only plays a small role in an outcome, it is less likely that an effect will be detected. Focusing policies on outcomes that can be measured at the individual or business level, can help as these can be easier to detect. So too, can focusing on larger investments in fewer areas. Programme evaluation may not always be the priority. For example, single settlements may mean that local decision-making is prioritised over the need to evaluate. When this happens, it’s important to explore other options for counterfactual impact evaluation such as evaluating individual projects and making sure that policy design facilitates these. Read in full 👇 https://loom.ly/QuuwAVU

📝 Undertaking impact evaluation of devolution 11 English city-regions have already signed devolution deals, and the new government is committed to devolution, with an English Devolution Bill due soon. This raises the question of how to evaluate the impact of devolution. Today we published a briefing to help policymakers think through the feasibility of evaluating the impact of devolution. As always, our focus is on demonstrating causality – i.e. that the outcomes observed are due to the intervention – which is done through a counterfactual impact evaluation. We argue it is extremely difficult to evaluate devolution as a whole due to how the policy has been designed and implemented over time. Options available, they are likely to use less robust methods or not provide convincing answers to key policy questions. Even though evaluation of devolution as a whole is difficult, it should be possible to undertake counterfactual impact evaluation of some policies, programmes or projects delivered by MCAs as a result of devolution deals. We encourage MCAs and MHCLG to pursue these impact evaluations wherever possible. MHCLG and MCAs could also learn more about how devolution is influencing practice by analysing monitoring data and undertaking process evaluation. Read in full👇 https://loom.ly/GRE-950

The Autumn Budget outlined some big increases in public spending to drive growth. Our new blog argues that it is important these are backed up by dedicated resources and support for evaluation to make sure that spending is cost effective. Read now 👇 https://loom.ly/eNUNPdA

📺Identifying local economic growth priorities with What Works Growth Presented by Office for National Statistics Local, we ran an event with policymakers to explore how data can help them better understand their local economy and where best to intervene. Watch the recording 👇 https://loom.ly/AC6yh0o

Local government use of data and evidence for economic growth is a mixed picture. We offer support to experts and beginners but the wide range of capability and capacity raises broader concerns. Read our latest blog from Head of Outreach Megan Streb 👇 https://loom.ly/warXTb0