Recommendation 4

It is still unclear what impact the Department is expecting from the Towns Fund, or when, and how the Department will measure its success. Although the Department is positive about the quality of the 13 plans submitted by the first cohort of towns and describes how it is assessing plans against local need, it has yet to develop monitoring and evaluation processes or decide how it will measure the impact and success of the Towns Fund. The Department says that its monitoring regime will measure outcomes that gauge improvement in the health and vitality of towns. It also tells us that outcomes will depend on the nature of each project and set out a list of possible measures which included jobs created, footfall, qualification levels, levels of private investment and commuting times. However, taking job creation as an example, we are not convinced that the Department has thought through how it will define and measure job creation to ensure that the Towns Fund will result in additional, good quality, sustainable jobs. Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out how the Towns Fund programme will secure positive, long term outcomes, and the measures of success it intends to use to monitor and evaluate its impact. In particular it should be clear about the measures against which it will measure any new jobs created.