DD136 Social Impact Measurement and Evaluation for Good Growth funded projects

The Good Growth projects are part of OPDC's In the Making initiative aimed at delivering improvements to the OPDC area through targeted small-scale physical improvements.

OPDC has been awarded a total of £1,950,004 from the Mayor's Good Growth Fund - £750,004 and £1,200,000 from Rounds 1 and 2 respectively. Approval to receive the grant was provided by the Board at its March 2019 and September 2019, together with an office delegation to approve expenditure of the grant.

As part of its grant obligations and match funding contribution, OPDC has committed £30,000 to evaluate the social value impact of the projects.

This decision forms seeks approval for expenditure of up to £30,000, profiled over financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22, to pay for an external firm to deliver for OPDC a social impact evaluation assessing the impact of the Good Growth funded projects, as committed to in the grant agreement. The estimated budget of £30,000 has been based on the cost of the Great Place Scheme evaluation, however, tenders may be less than this amount. This forms part of OPDC's match-funding contribution.

Dependent on timescales with the OPDC corporate plan and budget considerations the consultant may be instructed to conduct initial research into forming a social value indicator framework for the organisation.

The projects that will be assessed will be:

• Willesden Junction Station public realm improvements
• Wormwood Scrubs entrances
• Harlesden Canalside
• Old Oak Lane towpath ramp
• Overall improvements to the canal (biodiversity and wayfinding improvements)
• Creative wayfinding

The GLA Good Growth Fund grant agreement sets out options for measuring various outputs, those most relevant to OPDC's projects are listed below:

• Number of cultural and community events
• Sense of belonging to an area (expressed as a % or respondents in a series of samples)
• Number of people who actively participate in a project through volunteering, co-commissioning etc.
• Square meters of public relam created/improved
• Low cost community space created (m2)
• Jobs created or safeguarded
• Increase in footfall (expressed as % increase before and after improvements)
• Number of volunteering opportunities created
• Number of young people engaged

This work is required now so that baseline data can be captured ahead of any works starting on site. The Old Oak Lane towpath ramp and Willesden Junction public realm improvements are due to start on site Spring 2021, so data will need to be captured between now and Spring next year. This is reflected in the profiling of expenditure between FY 20/21 and FY 21/22. See paragraph 5.1.

OPDC will look to add other outputs to be measured, particularly in regard to diversity and inclusion, aligning with the Race Equity Action Plan and wider diversity and inclusion strategy. We will work with the consultants to agree how the data will be collected and the format of how the data will be presented.

The work will enable OPDC to meet its obligations to the GLA as per the grant funding agreement but the analysis will also allow OPDC to track, monitor and learn from the impact of the Good Growth projects to help inform OPDC's longer term strategies and future projects.

In conjunction with the evaluators appointed for the Great Place Scheme, the work will also enable OPDC to communicate qualitatively and qualitatively on the impact In the Making initiative as a whole, allowing the work to be accountable to the community and useful to share with partners and stakeholders, as well as be useful in evidence for future funding submissions.

This initial piece of work will also help scope and inform what social value policy or framework OPDC would like ti implement in the future. Initial work on this may be instructed to the consultant, dependant on timing and budget.

Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the OPDC is subject to the public sector equality duty and must have 'due regard' to the need to (i) eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; (ii) advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not; and (iii) foster good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do. Protected characteristics under section 149 of the Equality Act are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sex orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status (all except the last being "relevant" protected characteristics.

No adverse impacts to the above protected characteristics have been identified. The procurement brief will explicitly refer to the diversity of the wider OPDC area and will require candidates to explain how they intend to be inclusive in their approach to engaging with the wider community outside of the core resident group and those who are historically under-represented. This will help OPDC the Mayor deliver on equality and inclusion policies to promote an accessible and inclusive environment and meet the Equalities Duty by identifying opportunities for a wide range of existing and new communities.

The brief will request for the consultants to segregate the data collected by different minority groups so that OPDC is able to understand the detail of how different groups are positively or negatively impacted by the projects. This will be useful in informing OPDC's Race Equity Action Plan and OPDC's Diversity and Inclusion policy.

This piece of work directly links to the Mayor's Good Growth agenda and will assess whether OPDC is effectively delivering against the Good Growth objectives.

The work aims to be a starter and catalyst for developing OPDC's wider social value framework, a key project identified as part of OPDC's Recovery Strategy.

Key Risks

There is a risk that having separate evaluators for the In the Making projects become unclear and unaligned when reporting the initiative as whole.

Mitigation: OPDC will ensure that the consultants appointed for this work are briefed on the work being undertaken by the Great Place Scheme evaluator. OPDC will make sure that consultants work together to ensure that, where relevant, gathering of data is and that similar outputs are recorded using the same metrics.

Mitigation: A working group, across workstreams, exploring social value and impact measurement has been convened o ensure all work is aligned.

Expenditure of up to £30,000 will be funded by the Design team 2020/21 (£10,000) and 2021/22 (£20,000) budgets. FUrther expenditure is subject to the corporation's decision making process.