Recommendation 2

The Department does not yet have a strong understanding of what works for local growth but we welcome its belated commitment to evaluating local growth interventions. It is disappointing that, despite billions spent on local growth over many decades, government does not yet have a strong understanding of what works. In 2019, the committee highlighted how the Department did not understand what impacts its £12 billion Local Growth Fund had had on local economic growth and yet had also decided not to evaluate it. While we are pleased that it has now reversed that decision, designing an evaluation at the end of a scheme is not ideal. Activities, such as establishing a baseline against which to assess impact, will be extremely difficult. It is inherently complicated to understand the impact of place-based policies and central government funding is only one part of the wider levelling up agenda. But understanding what part these policies play will be essential to ensuring continued improvement and value for money. It is encouraging that evaluation features prominently in government’s Levelling Up White Paper and that the Department is committed to improving its track record in this area, but it is disappointing that it has not yet developed the promised overarching monitoring and evaluation framework for local growth. 6 Local economic growth Recommendation: The Department should update us on progress with its local growth evaluation commitments (including for the Local Growth Fund) and set out how it intends to feed evaluation findings back into its ongoing local growth activity and to the wider levelling up agenda.