Supporting local economic growth

Departments should ensure that they follow HM Treasury guidance on developing and appraising business cases at key decision points. This should include ensuring they document how they have evaluated alternative ways to deliver a desired outcome and providing an audit trail on the decision-making process. In the event that departments and HM Treasury elect to skip or consolidate business case stages, they should document the reasons for doing so.

The Department should undertake an urgent assessment of the capacity and capability of both the Department and local authorities to prepare, assess and monitor bids for improvement funds.

The Department should evaluate the effectiveness of its capacity-building funding.

The Department should review the current arrangements for coordination of its local growth programmes to: • coordinate related local growth interventions better and reduce the risk that they work at cross-purposes;

manage interdependencies with other government departments deploying related or potentially conflicting initiatives.

The Department should set out and publish its plans to formally evaluate the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in line with the Magenta Book’s emphasis on the importance of planning an evaluation early. It should ensure it will be in a position to conclude on whether the interventions have achieved their objectives at a national as well as local level.

Given the challenges of carrying out high-quality evaluation, the Department should also: • carry out a prioritisation exercise to identify and fill the most important gaps in its evidence; and

• capture and apply lessons learned at key points in the design and delivery of new local growth funds.