Read: Putting the value into evaluation

Taking the time to properly evaluate and measure a project is key to its effective progress. Countless projects, launched by governments over the years with plenty of good intentions - and even more fanfare - seem to fall short of expectations, without the impact Ministers had hoped.

Sometimes that’s because it was a poor project with a poor plan in the first place. Other times it’s the weak implementation of a great project that ultimately lets it down. As Secretary of State for Education, and Secretary of State for International Development before that, I’ve seen more than my fair share of proposed Government projects. Unusually for most in my position, I’d trained as a Chartered Accountant and spent many years working in industry. I knew what I needed from a business case to enable me to sign it off and track its progress.

A December 2021 report by the National Audit Office found that only eight per cent of major government projects had robust evaluation plans in place. It concluded that it is difficult to scrutinise how effectively public money is being spent and to have confidence that spending in policy areas will make a significant difference.

But the challenge is even greater if you want to measure progress on levelling up. It’s a complex issue, requiring action from a wider set of actors than just Government departments, important though that is. What gets measured gets done so ensuring there is a complete picture covering all the areas that need change is vital. 

Measurement and strong metrics matter for three reasons. They matter firstly because improved social mobility is a complex, generational issue where improvements in childhood outcomes can take years to feed through into having a better career as an adult. So it’s important we can have some measures in place in the meantime to tell us if we’re moving in the right direction. Secondly, measures for levelling up matter because the wider public wants to know if progress is being made. It means ensuring that measures can be easily understood. That can be hard if the evidence is difficult to explain, so being clear on what counts is crucial. Thirdly, measures matter because if we have the right ones they can themselves be a way of galvanising very different organisations to all pull in the same direction. They give clarity on outcomes. Those working to drive change may have never even met, but, for example, if we’re all trying to reduce the number of children arriving at school who are not ‘school ready’ per our DfE assessments, then it doesn’t necessarily matter.  

The Purpose Coalition, and the set of 14 Levelling Up Goals that it has developed to tackle barriers to opportunity, have measurement and evaluation as their focus. The Goals provide a framework to map best practice, track progress, report outcomes and ensure measurable impact on staff, customers and communities. The development of a set of metrics for each Goal has been done with input from employers, universities and civil society but also with expertise from the Office for National Statistics. It’s clear from our collective work that we should continue to develop our baseline metrics. In the meantime, it’s helped us to work out where data is patchy or non-existent and to prioritise which data gaps we plug first, and how. Alongside work to properly ‘bolt down’ evaluation, it means we are uniquely able to ensure that an organisation’s social impact targets the right issues and the right people while also delivering measurable benefits with an approach that we are confident works.  

As we await the publication of the Government’s White Paper on Levelling Up early this year, and with COVID-19 still causing problems for our health and education systems and economy, as well as impacting our personal and working lives, it is more vital than ever that the strategy Government itself introduces is accompanied by a robust system of measurement and evaluation. That will help inform a longer-term approach which assesses how the policies are working, what the benefits are for different areas and whether the balance is working for the communities that are most disadvantaged. Government has to particularly track the Levelling Up Goal areas where it is leading on improving outcomes, such as education and getting into work and careers (Goals 1-4). It also needs to be completely transparent. 

We know that there will be a growing focus on local decision making and local government. Having data that tells us what is happening to the different Levelling Up Goal metrics at a granular, community level is the best way to really know whether the lives of people in very different places are changing for the better.

Over time, through our Levelling Up Goals work, we aim to drive insight and understanding of what works on the ground and to share that with policymakers and employers so we can get further, faster. There’s a long way to go but if we know how levelling up breaks down through the Levelling Up Goals and how to measure progress against those Goals - and now we do - then we can start to assess what the evidence is telling us and if we’re really making a difference.

That is going to be particularly true of the Government’s much-heralded plans to level up. Communities and their representatives are going to be looking at them very closely and expect to see quantifiable results. They will want to see what value is added by the steps the Government takes, including the impact on our public finances. That means decentralising power to the regions so that local government and its partners can use their knowledge and expertise to have the greatest impact on the area. It also means working with successful businesses and organisations who are already operating in some of the most underserved regions to deliver opportunity to those who have traditionally been furthest away from it.

Companies like the Sage Group in the north east, providing advice and mentoring on starting a business and making entrepreneurship the norm and Amazon in Essex, offering apprenticeships where there was previously little opportunity for young people to earn and learn at the same time. Universities like Bradford, opening up higher education and delivering the right expertise into the local area and NHS Trusts like the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust, providing acute care and delivering better health outcomes for its community.

Without the opportunities they are creating, there would be higher unemployment rates, more poverty, worse physical and mental health outcomes and more social isolation. That has a significant negative impact on public finances which have to be diverted to address them. Levelling up won’t only improve outcomes for the individual, it will help the country’s recovery as we emerge from the pandemic – providing the right skills for a new, greener economy and bringing opportunity to the places that need it most. But measuring those outcomes is key, and honest evaluation can guide best practice and drive improved outcomes.

By Rt Hon Justine Greening