Evaluating the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in London

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) was introduced to replace European Structural and Investment Funds and support local economic growth across the country. In London, this meant designing and delivering a £144 million programme (2022–2025) to strengthen businesses, revitalise communities, and improve employment outcomes—across one of the world’s most complex urban economies.

Challenge

The scale and diversity of London presented both opportunity and challenge in designing an evaluation framework. The programme included 96 distinct interventions and more than 380 projects and sub-projects ranging from neighbourhood public realm improvements to pan-London innovation accelerators and targeted employment support for disadvantaged young people.

A distinctive feature of the London programme was its hybrid delivery model. Over half of funding flowed directly to boroughs, while other resources were competitively commissioned or awarded to strategic delivery partners. This structure aimed to balance local empowerment with strategic coherence.

Solution

We designed and delivered a rapid lessons-learned, mixed-method evaluation spanning the full programme lifecycle. Our approach combined strategic insight with detailed operational analysis to clearly show how the programme performed and what value it delivered.

Using a multi-layered evaluation framework aligned to the national UKSPF logic model adapted to reflect London’s governance model and partnership structures, we undertook:

• Detailed reviews of programme dashboards and management information.
• Quantitative assessments of outputs and outcomes.
• 80+ stakeholder interviews across boroughs, delivery partners, sub-regional partnerships, and programme leaders.
• Case studies capturing local, sub-regional, and thematic perspectives.

We examined how the commissioning model worked in practice, including how it was managed, how risks were handled, and how organisations worked together. This showed how direct funding supported local control and quick responses, while competitive elements encouraged innovation and focus. We looked at both the number of people reached and the real‑world impact, including how well the programme served underserved groups and how flexible design allowed support to be tailored to individuals.

Capturing added value

Beyond measuring outputs, our evaluation focused on additionality. This approach allowed us to assess not only what was delivered, but what difference it made in plugging critical funding gaps and strengthening local capacity and collaboration.

Many business-supported projects were explicitly targeted at underrepresented founders, while employment initiatives prioritised young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET), and individuals facing other structural barriers.

Results

The evaluation found that the London UKSPF programme delivered strongly against its objectives—achieving nearly all intended outputs and outcomes and demonstrating substantial added value.

In terms of driving business growth and entrepreneurship, the programme expanded London’s entrepreneurial ecosystem while targeting inclusion and innovation. Many founders from diverse backgrounds accessed investment readiness support, networks, and mentoring that were not otherwise available.

Tens of thousands of residents engaged in community activities and benefited from enhanced facilities. This localised, bottom-up design allowed boroughs to respond directly to community needs, strengthening pride in place and visible neighbourhood improvements.

The programme also delivered systemic benefits such as improved cross-borough collaboration and increased local capacity in business support, targeted employment services, and community engagement.

Looking forward

Our evaluation highlights important lessons for future funding programmes:

• Mixed commissioning models can combine efficiency, innovation, and local empowerment.
• Multi-year funding horizons are critical for employment and skills interventions.
• Flexible, responsive contract management improves delivery quality and impact.
• Embedding inclusion at design stage leads to stronger reach and outcomes.

The London UKSPF programme demonstrates that empowering local decision-makers within a coherent strategic framework can produce a richer, more responsive, and more inclusive programme.

Through rigorous evaluation and strategic insight, we helped capture not only what was delivered but how London’s approach to partnership, flexibility, and inclusion can inform the next generation of place-based investment.