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Summary of the local place

North Wales comprises six local authorities (Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, and Wrexham) bordering the Irish Sea at the North and Northwest coast of Wales. It consists of an island community (Anglesey), coastal, mountainous and rural communities (particularly in the north west and Snowdonia National Park and the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley) and industrial urban centres (particularly in the north east).

The highest population concentration is in the northeast and north coast, where several larger towns are located including Wrexham, Rhyl, Flint, and Bangor. The northwest of the region is characterised by a considerable Welsh speaking population, particularly in Gwynedd and Anglesey which have the highest estimated percentages of Welsh speakers in Wales at 74.2% and 62.8% respectively.^{[footnote 1]} North Wales faces a range of social and economic challenges and opportunities, from pockets of high unemployment and low productivity to an abundance of natural resources, heritage assets, and range of emerging sectors. North Wales also has an ageing population, and the region鈥檚 working age population has been declining since 2011. North Wales, particularly Conwy and Anglesey, has experienced higher growth in the 65+ age group than the national average. This is a concern for the future, particularly regarding an ageing workforce.

The North Wales Investment Plan identified key areas for the region to focus the United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) allocations on, including enhancing the role of the third sector, increasing the attractiveness and safety of the public realm, reducing long-term barriers to unemployment, boosting skills, and reducing carbon emissions of local businesses. The North Wales UKSPF programme, managed by Gwynedd County Council as the Lead Local Authority, has been developed to oversee distribution of the 拢126 million in UKSPF funding, of which 拢50.2 million has been allocated to Communities & Place, 拢25.1 million to Supporting Local Businesses, 拢21.8 million to People and Skills, and 拢21.8 million to Multiply. Across the three investment priorities (and Multiply), North Wales has allocated this to a total of 167 projects (as of September 2024).

Unit of analysis

The evaluation will focus on three thematic areas for deep dive impact analysis, alongside a meta-analysis of all completed project level evaluation reports. This will best capture whether some of the aims of the North Wales UKSPF investment plan have been realised while overcoming the barriers of the large number of interventions, geographical diversity, and programme scale in North Wales.

The 3 in depth thematic areas are:

• Empowering communities and enhancing the voluntary and community sector: this focuses on the impacts of the programme design and delivery of activities to build the capacity and financial sustainability of the third sector, voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises, and grassroots initiatives in North Wales.
• Decarbonising North Wales: this focuses on the support provided to local businesses in North Wales to help them with their decarbonisation plans and transition to net zero. This is identified as a strategic priority in regional economic plans for North Wales. By exploring the extent to which projects and interventions have provided support for decarbonisation strategies, the evaluation will test the extent to which local businesses in North Wales have improved operational efficiency and increased their capacity to respond to North Wales鈥檚 green growth and sustainability objectives.
• Improving basic, digital, and 鈥榮oft鈥� skills: This focuses on the Working Denbighshire Programme, which seeks to improve employability for those facing deep barriers to the labour market. This holistic model includes initiatives to enhance basic, digital, and soft skills, and including boosting confidence and resilience.

Methodological approach

Process evaluation

The process evaluation will analyse core areas including fund design, fund implementation, delivery of interventions and data collection & monitoring. Process evaluation tasks will involve review of data, documents and changes to policy & socio-economic context, consultations with delivery & strategic stakeholders and surveys with project delivery bodies.

Impact evaluation

Quasi-experimental design (QED) approaches have been considered for each element of the evaluation, with the following conclusions.

• Empowering communities and enhancing the voluntary and community sector: 鈥� it is assessed that a limited QED approach would be viable. The approach would be to identify a comparator group, using programme monitoring data to obtain details of businesses who applied to one of four projects (Conwy Voluntary Capacity Building Key Fund, Denbighshire Community Capacity Building Key Fund, Empowering Gwynedd, and Voluntary Support Fund Gwynedd) but were unsuccessful and did not participate. This group will then be compared with those in the same geographical area who were successful to explore changes related to how support has enhanced the role of the voluntary and community sector and improved financial sustainability. Primary data will derive from surveys, consultations, and focus groups combined with secondary data drawn from sources such as Welsh Centre for Voluntary Action (WCVA)鈥檚 data portal. This data will inform analysis of the extent to which intervention group organisations in Conwy, Denbighshire, and Gwynedd have enhanced their capacity relative to a comparison group.

• Decarbonisation 鈥� it is assessed that a QED would not be viable. The timeframes and available evidence means that conducting a QED approach would not be possible. Instead, the impact evaluation for this theme will use a contribution analysis, drawing on evidence from management information, secondary data and primary research, as well as the meta-analysis to inform any conclusions.

• Improving basic, digital, and 鈥榮oft鈥� skills 鈥� it is assessed that a QED would not be viable. The combination of available evidence and timescales within which impacts are expected to be achieved restrict the ability to conduct a QED approach for this theme. A contribution analysis will instead be conducted drawing on evidence from management information, secondary data and primary research, as well as the meta-analysis to inform any conclusions.

Economic evaluation

It is proposed that the economic evaluation will follow the 4E鈥檚 approach set out by the National Audit office, considering economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity of the programme investments. Where possible, this will incorporate cost effectiveness analysis drawing on the net additional impact analysis from the quasi-experimental design relating to the Empowering Communities theme.

Data to support the evaluation

The following data sources will be used across the three main strands of the impact evaluation:

Primary data collection

Empowering Communities	Decarbonisation	Improving basic, digital, and 鈥榮oft鈥� skills
鈻� Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) 鈻� Surveys of supported businesses 鈻� Surveys of non-supported businesses (if possible). 鈻� Your Community, Your Say survey key metrics related to enhanced perception of community cohesion.	鈻� Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) including research to test carbon savings.	鈻� Stakeholder consultation (strategic and delivery) 鈻� Surveys of supported individuals.

Secondary data sources

Empowering Communities	Decarbonisation	Improving basic, digital, and 鈥榮oft鈥� skills
鈻� Data from WCVA鈥檚 Data Hub on volunteer numbers, financial sustainability of third sector orgs	鈻� Emissions data from DESNZ 鈻� Local programme data on investment in decarbonisation activities.	ONS data on unemployment, NEETs, earnings and economic activity. 鈻� Local programme data on qualifications gained.