Public performance and delivery

Why Evaluation Matters More Than Ever: Lessons from Recent Local Government Evidence

/ jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Jason Lowther

For many researchers and analysts working in local government, evaluation can sometimes feel like yet another additional reporting requirement attached to programme delivery. Yet a series of recent evaluations (including homelessness, local growth and skills, and community ownership) demonstrates why evaluation is increasingly central to effective public policy. These studies also highlight several methodological lessons that should influence how local authorities design, commission and use evaluation in the future.

The first lesson is that evaluation is no longer primarily about proving impact. Increasingly, it is about understanding systems. Recent evaluations of homelessness and rough sleeping have moved beyond individual interventions to examine how housing, welfare, health, justice and local government interact. Rather than asking simply whether a programme worked, they explored why outcomes emerge within a complex environment. The findings suggest that fragmented funding, conflicting incentives and a persistent focus on crisis response often undermine preventative approaches, regardless of the quality of local services.

This reflects a broader shift towards complexity-aware evaluation. As councils have known for years, many local challenges, including homelessness, economic development and community regeneration, are influenced by multiple organisations and external factors. Traditional experimental approaches are often difficult to apply in such settings. Consequently, recent evaluations have increasingly used systems mapping, qualitative fieldwork, contribution analysis and mixed-method designs to understand causal pathways rather than attempting to isolate a single intervention effect. The emphasis is increasingly on understanding contribution rather than claiming attribution.  We may need to re-consider having systematic reviews of RCTs atop our methodological pyramids?

A second lesson concerns the value of process evaluation. Across multiple policy areas, some of the most useful findings relate not to outcomes but to implementation. Evaluations of local growth funds, skills programmes and place-based regeneration initiatives consistently show that local flexibility enables adaptation to local circumstances. Conversely, they also reveal how compressed delivery timescales can constrain innovation, limit stakeholder engagement and encourage delivery of readily implementable projects rather than longer-term transformation.

Third, the evaluations expose the continuing challenge of measuring long-term outcomes. In local growth programmes, evaluators highlight the difficulty of attributing changes in productivity, employment or economic resilience to specific interventions when impacts emerge over many years and are shaped by wider economic conditions. Similarly, evaluations of community ownership initiatives have already generated evidence of strengthened community participation, local pride and volunteering, but economic sustainability and growth impacts remain less certain because many projects remain at an early stage of development.

This raises an important methodological point. Public sector evaluation often demands evidence before outcomes have had sufficient time to emerge. Analysts should therefore distinguish carefully between outputs, intermediate outcomes and longer-term impacts. Developing robust theories of change and identifying realistic milestones along a causal pathway may provide more meaningful evidence than premature attempts to demonstrate definitive impact. In many cases, demonstrating credible progress towards expected outcomes may be a more realistic and useful objective than proving final impacts.

A fourth lesson concerns the importance of context. Recent place-based evaluations show that outcomes depend heavily on local conditions, governance maturity, partnership networks and existing organisational capacity. Similarly, community ownership projects appear most successful where community organisations already possess strong leadership, governance and project management capabilities. These findings reinforce a recurring conclusion from evaluation research: “what works” is often contingent rather than universal.

For managers commissioning evaluations, this means moving beyond simple questions of effectiveness. The more useful questions are often: what works, for whom, in which circumstances, and through what mechanisms? Evaluations that address these questions may generate practical learning that is far more valuable than a single overall success measure.

Perhaps most importantly, these evaluations demonstrate that good evaluation supports organisational learning rather than accountability alone. While demonstrating value for money remains important, evaluation also provides a mechanism for understanding complexity, adapting delivery, strengthening partnerships and improving future decision-making. In an era of fiscal constraint, rising demand and increasing policy complexity, this learning function may be its greatest contribution.

Taken together, these recent evaluations point towards a more mature understanding of evidence in local public services. They show that evaluation is at its most valuable when it helps organisations understand systems, implementation, context and causation. For local government researchers and analysts, the challenge is not simply to generate more evidence, but to generate evidence that helps decision-makers navigate complexity. In an environment where public services face growing pressures and finite resources, that capability is becoming an essential component of effective public policy and organisational improvement.

Discussion of the available evaluations mentioned are available here.

This article was first published in the September 2026 edition of the LARIA (Local Area Research and Intelligence Association) newsletter.


Jason is Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham. Email [email protected]

Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2026: why the future of public services is about systems, not services

/ jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Claire Dhami

I was fortunate enough to attend the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin this June, bringing together public servants, leaders and practitioners from across the world who are grappling with the same fundamental challenge: how do we make public services work better for people in increasingly complex and uncertain times.

The festival itself has an interesting origin. It was founded by Charles Landry and others as a provocation. The term ‘creative bureaucracy’ deliberately challenges the stereotype of bureaucracy as rigid, slow and rule bound. Instead, it puts forward a different idea that public institutions, at their best, can be imaginative, humane and capable of solving complex problems.

What began as a provocation has now become a global movement. The festival has grown into a space where thousands of public servants come together each year to share what is actually working in practice, often in spite of system constraints, and to learn from each other.

What struck me most, both from the festival and from our work in the West Midlands, is that the issues we face are remarkably consistent across countries. There is a growing recognition that many of the challenges in public services are not about marginal service gaps. They are about how the system itself is designed.

We have built systems that are logically organised around institutions, but in practice expect people to navigate multiple disconnected pathways. Responsibility is too often passed between organisations, rather than shared. The result is fragmented, transactional experiences, particularly for those with the most complex needs.

This is not a capability problem. It is a design problem.

One of the most powerful shifts discussed at the festival is moving from improving individual services to improving life outcomes. That may sound like a subtle change, but it fundamentally alters how we think about reform.

Instead of asking how to optimise what already exists, we start by asking what people actually need to thrive and then work backwards to shape the system around that. In our own work, this means focusing less on creating new interventions and more on redesigning the pathways between education, health, employment and community support, particularly at the points where people are most at risk of falling through the gaps.

This is where relational public services become essential. When support is organised around trusted relationships and continuity, rather than organisational boundaries and eligibility criteria, the experience for residents changes completely. It becomes earlier, more consistent and more human.

But perhaps the most important insight for me was how we think about innovation.

There is a tendency in the public sector to equate innovation with new programmes or pilots. The festival challenged that directly. A more effective model is to see innovation as a small but deliberate part of the system, around 10 percent of activity, designed to influence the other 90 percent.

The pilots themselves are not the outcome. They may succeed or fail. The real value lies in the learning they generate and whether that learning changes how the system behaves. That means influencing mainstream commissioning, policy decisions and how resources are actually deployed.

This requires discipline. Without a clear link between experimentation and system change, innovation remains interesting but peripheral. With it, innovation becomes a lever for reform.

It also clarifies the role of organisations like the Combined Authority. Our role is not to direct delivery or create new services. It is to influence how the system behaves. That means convening partners, aligning incentives, building shared ownership of outcomes and creating the conditions for change.

At the same time, the festival highlighted a fundamental contradiction that we see locally. We talk about partnership, prevention and place-based working, but continue to fund services in ways that reinforce fragmentation. If we are serious about system outcomes, we have to fund them differently, aligning resources around shared cohorts and goals rather than organisational silos.

The message I took away from Berlin is that the future of public services will not be defined by new initiatives. It will be defined by our ability to redesign systems so that good people are able to do the right thing, consistently.

When we get that right, innovation is no longer something separate. It becomes part of how the system learns, adapts and improves over time. And that is where meaningful, lasting change happens.

Claire Dhami is Head of systems change and inclusion at West Midlands Combined Authority.

Local Authorities engaging in housing delivery

/ jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Janice Morphet

The Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government frequently speaks to the media about the ways in which local authorities are providing more homes. She typically discusses two ways that she expects them to deliver – through the reform of the planning system and providing more social rent homes using Government Funding[1].  All councils use the planning system to negotiate affordable housing secured through planning agreements[2] and about half of local authorities retain and develop social rent homes using government subsidy. However, over five waves of research since 2017, we have found that, in 2026[3], 95% of local authorities are engaged in housing delivery, although much of this is not recognised by government.

How are local authorities increasing the number of homes they need in their areas? We look at this in detail in our research. Each round in 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and 2026 has used the same methods to find out what councils are doing. The first stage is to examine each council’s documents, reports, websites and records to provide detailed information about their levels of activity. These findings are published in a free report which is available now for 2026. Where the council has its own company to develop homes alongside other methods, like WV Living in Wolverhampton or Goram Homes in Bristol this is noted and weblinks provided. Some councils also have active Arm’s Length Management Companies (ALMOs), where the council retains ownership of its stock but some or all aspects of its housing management and delivery are undertaken independently. These ALMOs are also registered as housing associations and have separate assured access to government funding. While the number of ALMOs has been reducing, some that remain are very active including Cornwall, Derby City and the LB of Sutton.

Other councils enter into partnerships with private developers or housing associations. Some local authorities may enter into multiple arrangements of this type such as Oxford City Council, where the agreement will vary on each site. Others like Gateshead and Cambridge have developer agreements for several housing sites over a period. In some locations, such as LB Ealing, local authority estate regeneration is undertaken with both housing developers and housing associations. These relationships bring funding, expertise for councils and less risk for developers who will usually also be providing some market homes as part of the arrangements. However, when completed, despite local authorities often providing land, finance, advocacy and guarantees to third party funders, the homes are attributed to the developer and/or the housing association and not to the council.

Since 2022, housing construction costs have increased while government subsidies and restrictions on the use of receipts for properties sold under right to buy have limited local authority investment in housing delivery. Yet 82% of councils increased affordable housing in their areas. At the same time, homelessness has increased placing strain on wider council budgets. Local authorities have been looking for other solutions to provide more homes. In the 2026 survey we found 57% councils are acquiring homes to add to their stock. While these homes are not net additions, they can be used for different tenures and to relieve homelessness, overcrowding and multiple occupation. The funding for acquisitions has come from an Government easing of the use of RTB receipts such as Bassetlaw and through a Council’s General Fund rather than through the specific housing funding route. Some councils are managing acquisitions through setting a budget, numbers cap or location, others by seeking certain types of homes eg former RTB homes to enable future estate regeneration eg Ipswich or suitable for older people such as Bury. Where councils have been working with developers, they have been able to agree purchases of unsold new homes at different points in their construction – from design stage to completion including Birmingham City Council. Many councils are supporting the development of garden villages and urban extensions to provide additional homes including Sandwell, South Derbyshire and Cheshire East.

Some councils are engaged in a wide variety of activities to deliver homes including Stockport, Sheffield and most London Boroughs where the Mayor of London has the power to provide all with funding for 5-10 year social housing programmes. If the new Prime Minister wants local authorities to deliver more homes, then the expertise and skills built up in London Boroughs to deliver the Mayor’s programme and then applied to wider housing delivery should be available to every other local authority in the country.

Local authorities are providing more homes than popularly acknowledged. They should receive more recognition of what they are achieving and the model of funding for each local authority as available in London demonstrates that this approach has a significant role in expanding housing delivery across all tenures in England.  

Janice Morphet is a Visiting Professor at University College London’s Bartlett School of Planning

The full report is here:

2026 desk survey report for publicationDownload

[1] Eg BBCR4 Today Programme 19th August 2026

[2] Often known as s106 agreements from role of s106 of the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act in providing the legal means to secure this housing

[3] Local Authority Direct Provision of Housing in England: Round Five Research Report 1 – Local Authority Activity to Directly Support Housing Provision: Desk Survey Report. Janice Morphet and Ben Clifford UCL Bartlett School of Planning

What works in violence reduction? Learning from the London Vanguards evaluation

/ jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Dr. Jason Lowther

This is the last (for now) of our series of blogs on recent evaluations of local public services – if you have published an evaluation you think may be of interest to Inlogov readers, please send me a link to it ([email protected]).

Much of the evaluation literature on violence reduction has focused on system-wide approaches such as Violence Reduction Units. The London Vanguards independent evaluation offers a close look at one defined service model designed to support children and young people affected by violence through integrated, community-based provision.

The London Vanguards programme, delivered across 12 boroughs between 2022 and 2025, brought together health, community and psychological support into a single, coordinated offer for young people at risk of, or affected by, violence. The independent evaluation, led by the Anna Freud Centre, used a mixed-methods realist design, combining service data with interviews and focus groups involving young people, families and practitioners. The aim was not only to assess outcomes, but to understand how and why the model worked in practice.

A holistic, multi-systems approach

At the core of the Vanguards model is a holistic understanding of violence risk. Rather than focusing narrowly on offending behaviour, the programme recognises that many young people experience multiple, overlapping adversities – including mental health needs, family instability, educational exclusion and unmet developmental needs.

The evaluation shows that this approach enabled services to identify needs that had often gone unrecognised elsewhere, particularly around neurodevelopmental conditions, speech and language difficulties and mental health. These underlying issues frequently shape both vulnerability to violence and the ability to engage with support.

The model therefore combined psychological support, practical help and wider system navigation, rather than relying on a single intervention. In doing so, it reflects a shift from treating violence as an isolated problem to addressing it as part of a wider set of life circumstances.

Outcomes: improvements across multiple domains

The evaluation presents a broadly positive picture of outcomes, although with important caveats around data completeness.

Around 1,500 children and young people were supported over the life of the programme. Among those with available data, there were reported improvements across several domains:

  • mental health improved for around 47 per cent of participants
  • education and accommodation outcomes improved for around one third
  • reductions in offending and high-risk behaviours were reported for a significant minority

Qualitative evidence reinforces these findings. Young people, parents and practitioners consistently described increases in confidence, wellbeing and sense of agency, as well as improvements in family relationships and engagement with education or employment.

Importantly, the evaluation suggests that these changes were not always short-lived. Many participants maintained positive outcomes over time, which was attributed to the longer-term, relationship-based nature of the support.

What drives change: relationships, persistence and coordination

Among the most valuable insights from the evaluation are those examining how change was achieved.

First, trusted relationships between practitioners and young people emerge as a central mechanism. The model’s flexible and persistent approach allowed practitioners to engage individuals who might otherwise disengage from services. This sustained engagement appears to be critical in supporting progress.  The importance of this relational approach to public services is increasingly recognised.

Second, multi-agency coordination proved essential. Although establishing partnerships was initially challenging, over time services became more aligned, enabling more coherent and responsive support. This coordination allowed practitioners to address needs across different domains without requiring young people to navigate multiple disconnected systems.

Third, the programme’s holistic design enabled it to respond to changing needs. Rather than fixed pathways, support could adapt as circumstances evolved, which is particularly important given the instability many participants experienced.

The data challenge: promising evidence, incomplete picture

As with many complex service evaluations, the report highlights limitations in the evidence base. Missing data rates are high across several outcome measures, and there is no control group for comparison. This makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about impact.

What does this mean for local authorities?

The London Vanguards evaluation suggests several lessons for local government and partners.

First, violence reduction is inseparable from wider needs. Effective responses must address mental health, development, family context and structural disadvantage alongside risk behaviours. Single-issue interventions are unlikely to be sufficient.

Second, relationship-based practice is central. The strongest evidence of change comes from sustained, trust-based engagement between practitioners and young people. This has implications for workforce stability, caseloads and commissioning approaches.

Third, integration works, but takes time. The evaluation shows that multi-agency coordination improved over time, but required sustained effort to establish.

Fourth, flexibility is a strength. The ability to adapt support to individual needs was a key feature of the model. Highly standardised approaches may struggle to achieve similar outcomes with complex populations.

Finally, the evaluation highlights the importance of taking a long-term view. Improvements were gradual, interconnected and not always immediately visible. This may challenge some performance frameworks but better reflects the reality of supporting young people affected by violence.

Taken together, the evidence from the London Vanguards suggests that what works in this area is not a single intervention, but a way of working: holistic, relationship-based and coordinated across services. The challenge for government and local authorities is creating the conditions to sustain this approach over time.

From democratic resilience to systems resilience – Perspectives from the Inaugural Conference of the European Network for Public Administration 2026

/ jlowther2015 / Leave a comment

Dr. Elke Loeffler

The European Network for Public Administration (ENPA) is a newly founded independent learned society led by public administration academics for the theoretical and practical improvement of public administration.

I attended its inaugural conference, held at the top University ASE in Bucharest, in my role as co-founding Board Member and co-chair of the ENPA Research Group on Public Participation and Co-Production. There was also a strong representation of UKAPA – the UK Association for Public Administration. This event showcased a number of innovative formats, including a plenary in interview format on democratic resilience and a highly interactive ‘collaborative discussion’ session on systems resilience, as well as providing a highly-valued Conference Buddy Scheme for Doctoral Researchers.

During the conference it became clear that resilience is now a major emerging theme in public management research and practice. For many local councils this concept has so far been mainly used in relation to emergency response and planning. However, the LGA in the UK considers this to be a ‘whole council effort’, going beyond small emergency teams.

Moreover, the discussions at the ENPA Conference revealed that resilience is not just about sudden, extreme emergencies but about creeping crises such as democratic backsliding and and prolonged failures such as delayed access to public healthcare. While robust governance (Ansell, Torfing and Trondal, 2025, Robust Public Governance in a Turbulent Era) – the ability of a system to maintain its operations despite disruption – is important, resilience is more demanding – it is about the capacity for adaptation in the service system to recover to the same or high outcomes after a disturbance – or as a former UK Prime Minister expressed it “building back better”.

The keynote speakers also discussed the need for public administration scholars to strengthen resilience. Don Moynihan from the University of Michigan highlighted that rule-bound public administration and independent academic research often become targets for populist leaders. He suggested that, in times of democratic backsliding, delivering evidence-based descriptions of current situations and contexts may be more effective than sophisticated, time-consuming causal analysis. While not as analytically powerful, making it clear what is actually happening may make a greater impact on public attitudes, and eventually on public policies, than complex modelling. This argument gave rise to considerable debate in the coffee breaks!

The collaborative session in our Research Group demonstrated that local government resilience is not enough – we also need resilient communities, service users and markets. This brings in the potential role of user and community co-production in strengthening systems resilience. For example, Jan Dumkow from the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg provided a current action-research project involving co-design of an app for and with people with learning disabilities so that service providers would be able to provide tailored information in the case of emergencies.


The ‘whole systems resilience network’ depends on each element in the network of user-community-provider-market resilience being sound and well-balanced with the other elements (Bovaird and Loeffler 2024). The resilience network constitutes a dynamic system, in which each of the stakeholder groups is always looking to learn and to improve, with the consequence that a weak link in the network reduces the overall capability of the system. However, a systematic literature review which I undertook with Sanneke Kuipers (Leiden University) and Marie-Christine Therrien (Ecole Nationale D’Administration Publique, Montreal), on the role of co-production in strengthening resilience in extreme crisis, revealed that user and community involvement is largely absent in current evaluations of crisis interventions. This is cause for concern and highlights the urgent need for more engaged research with local communities and local councils on how to strengthen all links in the whole systems resilience network. INLOGOV is well situated to work with local councils and communities on this issue, given its expertise on co-production and social prescribing.

Dr. Elke Loeffler is an Associate of INLOGOV and Director of Governance International. She undertakes applied research on local public services and has research interests in community co-production and resilience. Elke is Board Member of the European Network of Public Administration, Vice-Chair for Doctoral Research in UKAPA and Chair of the Public & Nonprofit Management Group at EURAM.

What Works?  Local Government is Finding Out

/ jlowther2015 / 1 Comment

Jason Lowther

At last month’s Smith Square debate, we had an interesting discussion (among other themes) on how innovation spreads.  I mentioned that I was frustrated at the lack of traction that many evaluation reports seem to get, and that so many basically say “we don’t know so probably do more research”.  However, over the last 18 months, government has released a wave of evaluation evidence across multiple themes that are priorities for local government.  Partly in answer to my challenge, over the next few weeks we’ll be looking at what each of these can tell us about “what works” in their area: homelessness and rough sleeping, local growth and skills programmes, mental health and employment support, the Community Outcomes Fund, and the London Vanguards project on supporting young people affected by violence.

This week, I’ll have a go at seeing the story the collection as a whole might be telling us about the pressures, strengths and future direction of local government systems. They reveal a landscape where councils are doing a great deal right, but also where structural conditions, funding models and capacity constraints limit what even the best local practice is able to achieve.

A shared diagnosis: rising demand, systemic pressure and fragmented delivery

Most of the recently published evaluations echo the same system‑level diagnosis: demand is rising faster than capacity. In homelessness, systems‑wide analysis shows local authorities facing increasing crisis presentations driven by housing shortages, welfare constraints and cost‑of‑living pressures. In UKSPF and Multiply, compressed timeframes and short‑term funding cycles created operational strain and restrict innovation.  The Community Ownership Fund interim evaluation suggests that without the fund many pubs, community centres, sports facilities and heritage buildings would likely have been lost from community use, but also highlights long lead‑in times, complex project management demands, and volunteer burnout as recurring challenges.

Prevention consistently outperforms crisis response, but funding architectures still favour the latter

Across homelessness evaluations, the conclusion is clear: prevention is more humane, more effective and delivers better value for money than crisis response. Yet central‑local funding arrangements often reward short‑term, visible ‘rescue’ rather than long‑term preventative investment. Skills and economic development evaluations show similar dynamics. Multiply deep dives find that providers would benefit from multi‑year cycles that allow them to embed contextualised numeracy provision and build trusted relationships. Instead, annualised funding introduces uncertainty and forces a focus on quick (rather than effective) delivery.

The COF evaluation also surfaces a version of this problem. It shows that community ownership has deep preventative value, protecting assets before they disappear, strengthening social infrastructure, and avoiding long‑term local decline. But early rounds of COF were more accessible to groups with high pre‑existing capability, meaning communities most at risk were sometimes least able to prevent asset loss. Later rounds have improved this, lowering match‑funding requirements, widening eligibility, and offering stronger pre‑application support to disadvantaged communities. The lesson resonates across sectors: preventative systems require accessible, stable and equitable funding frameworks.


Local flexibility and community empowerment are major drivers of success

One of the clearest conclusions across the recent evaluations is that local flexibility works. UKSPF’s devolved decision‑making has been widely praised for enabling councils to design interventions aligned to local priorities. Multiply’s flexible design allowed councils to embed numeracy learning in real‑world contexts that resonated with learners.  The COF interim report finds that COF has been “uniquely positioned” to meet community needs, enabling groups to save valued assets and renew pride in place. Communities report increased participation, stronger local identity and early signs of improved social cohesion following COF‑supported interventions.

Workforce, capacity and governance: the quiet constraints shaping outcomes

A recurring thread across the evaluations is the impact of workforce shortages and operational capacity. Staff churn, fragile volunteer bases, rising caseloads and short‑term contracts constrain delivery, limit innovation and prevent organisations from embedding learning. Investing in capacity (skills, governance, leadership and organisational resilience) is critical for successful place‑based policy.

Partnerships make the biggest difference, but they need careful stewardship

From rough sleeping multi‑disciplinary teams to UKSPF delivery partnerships with VCSE organisations, strong collaboration emerges as one of the most important influences on success. Evaluations show that where councils act as effective system convenors (aligning partners, coordinating case management, sharing data and creating shared goals), outcomes improve.

What does all this mean for local government?

Three big implications stand out across the evaluations.

First, councils are increasingly system‑shapers, not simply programme‑managers.  The evaluations underline that successful outcomes depend on how councils orchestrate local systems (such as housing, economic development, VCSE partners and community groups) rather than on the quality of any single programme.

Second, stable, long‑term funding is essential for prevention, equity and innovation.  Short‑term cycles undermine prevention, limit strategic planning and exhaust delivery partners. The COF findings show how programme design changes can increase equity, but also how instability can disadvantage the communities most in need.

Finally, capacity‑building is central to reducing inequality, even when the policy focus is capital investment.  Across the board, councils, community groups and VCSE partners need investment in skills, leadership and organisational resilience. It’s essential that as a sector we develop systematic and accredited processes to deliver the necessary education and training.

The emerging picture is of local government doing extraordinary work under extraordinary pressure. But the future of place‑based policy will depend on giving councils and communities the tools, stability and capacity to shape local systems, rather than firefighting the consequences of systemic constraints.

Next time I will be diving in more detail into what the evaluations tell us about “what works” in tackling homelessness and rough sleeping.