The Department has been considering an overarching monitoring and evaluation framework for local growth to include common objectives and outcomes, within which individual programme-level frameworks would sit. This would enable it to compare the relative effectiveness of similar initiatives and minimise the data collection burden on local authorities. The Department has not yet started to develop this framework but is now developing detailed monitoring and evaluation plans for each of its local growth funds. These are at different stages of implementation. The Department has previously committed to defining a common set of metrics to aid comparison across places, but without significant progress.70