9 March 2010 – Publication of DWP Research Report 639: Evaluation of Phase 1 City Strategy

A report is published today by the Department for Work and Pensions which documents an evaluation of Phase 1 of the City Strategy Initiative (2007-2009).

The research was conducted by the Institute of Employment Research Warwick between Summer 2007 and Autumn 2009, and includes a consideration of local level evaluations; qualitative interviews with City Strategy Partnerships (CSPs) and other key stakeholders; and an assessment of the quantitative impact of the initiative.

The main findings were as follows:

The 15 CSPs cannot be said to follow a smaller number of ‘types’. The partnership and governance arrangements in each CSP are distinct and the partnerships have evolved over time.

All CSPs have delivered new activities or interventions additional to mainstream provision. The main thrust of activities has been in the fields of client engagement and employer engagement. There is some evidence of a positive effect of linking jobs to training through the individual ‘pathway’ models adopted by most CSPs.

There is clear evidence of cultural change and of new ways of inter-organisational working. A consequence of this has been to elevate the profile of employability in policy debate.

Measuring outcomes by quantitative investigation has been difficult due to restrictions on data availability and the difficulty of identifying the impact of City Strategy from trends in the population data available. This difficulty has been compounded by the change in economic circumstances since the inception of City Strategy. It is hoped that the use of individual data from local tracking systems will help overcome these constraints in the second Phase evaluation.  

In general, CSPs have had less local freedom than they envisaged originally and there have been some central-local tensions relating to enabling measures and data sharing (although much of this stemmed from specific circumstances relating to data protection which were beyond the control of both the CSPs and DWP).

Notes to Editors

1. The DWP Research Report 639: ‘Evaluation of Phase 1 City Strategy’ is published 9 March 2010 and is available at http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/recent_research.asp
2. The research was carried out on behalf of the Institute of Employment Research, Warwick University between Summer 2007 and Autumn 2009.

Media Enquiries: 0203 267 5123
Out of hours: 07659 108 883
Website: www.dwp.gov.uk