European Social Fund Local Service Board development and priority delivery project: summative report

The summative phase of the evaluation aimed to provide an overall assessment of whether and how the outcomes of the European Social Fund - Local Service Board Project have been achieved.

The methodology for this phase was designed to enable us to build on the findings in the Final Formative Report and comprised:

• secondary analysis of Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) indicators showing output data from all delivery projects
• review of evidence about how the Project has contributed to cross-cutting policy themes (equality, scrutiny and environmental sustainability)
• meta-analysis of evaluative material from a sample of 17 delivery projects. This drew on local evaluation reports and closure reports produced by the delivery projects to add insight to the findings from the thematic analysis of the case studies as presented in the formative report
• production of a set of ‘good practice vignettes’ drawn from the meta-analysis. These cover the themes of ‘third sector involvement’, ‘the role of the project manager’ and ‘legacy’ as well as two projects’ delivery of outcomes
• second wave of the all-Wales Public Service Survey on collaboration. This survey was sent to senior managers from across the whole Welsh public service, including the civil service, local government, health, police, fire and rescue, Communities First and the third sector. A total of 312 survey responses were received – a response rate of 25%.