Cities Growth Fund
The Cities Growth Fund is an initiative administered by the Scottish Government whereby additional resources (a total of £173 million between 2003 and 2008) are allocated to Scotland’s 6 cities to support projects that contribute to the growth of each city and the wider city region. Prior to the allocation of funds each city had to draw up a “Vision” outlining strengths and weaknesses and then detailing projects that would address these.
We were commissioned to undertake an Interim Evaluation of the Fund. In total the 6 cities were supporting around 70 projects. Detailed analysis of the projects was undertaken, supplemented by interviews with the key players in each of the cities.
The conclusions were that the Fund was well liked by the Cities and that it had facilitated partnership working. There was also evidence that the spend was additional. Despite this leverage seemed relatively poor and there were few examples of “visionary” or “iconic” projects. Most cities were using the Fund to support “more of the same” projects, that is the type of things that the local authority or its partners would generally fund. Streetscape was one of the best examples of this, accounting for around a third of total spend. It was also difficult to see how the Fund was being used in a different way to other Government programmes such as the Quality of Life Fund. The overall conclusion was that the Fund had not had as great an impact as it could, or perhaps should, have had. Recommendations coming from the analysis were that the Fund should be used more strategically, supporting a limited number of iconic projects in each city.
The Report was published in early 2007 and is available at:-
www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/27153210/0
Sheffield