The document discusses evaluation, data, and metrics for workforce development and local job creation programs in the UK. It notes that while evidence-based policy is aspired to nationally, it is more challenging to implement locally due to limited resources and changes to local governance structures. At the local level, the focus is more on formative rather than impact evaluation. Bringing innovation while also using data poses tensions around competition versus collaboration and transparency versus opacity. The document examines efforts in England to use a variety of evidence and data to inform local strategies, and challenges around strategic expertise, data capacity and sharing at the local level. It also introduces What Works Centres as a possible solution to strengthen the local evidence base.

1. EVALUATION, DATA AND METRICS:
LESSONS FROM OECD COUNTRIES:
THE UK
U.S. Department of Labor-OECD LEED
Workshop on Workforce Development and
Local Job Creation – An International
Perspective
18-19 November, 2014
Anne Green, Institute for Employment
Research, University of Warwick, UK

2. Overview
• Aspiration
evidence-based policy which is continuously evaluated
and accountable
• Effective use of evidence
is more evident nationally than locally – reflecting better
evidence, greater resources and expertise
• Change in institutional structures
demise of regional tier of governance (in England) and
transfer of powers to local level – but limited resources
• Funding
public spending cuts

3. Challenges for evaluation in the context
of Localism
• At local level foremost interest tends to be in formative
evaluation rather than impact evaluation
• Attempts to improve the evidence base face tensions
between:
- delivering what has been delivered before
- desire for INNOVATION
and:
- competition versus collaboration
- ‘black box’ versus ‘glass box’
• What doesn’t work?

4. Findings from Local Job Creation in
England (1)
• Appetite amongst local stakeholders for policies and
programmes to be informed by ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ evidence:
- official statistics
- administrative data
- national surveys (e.g. Employer Skills Survey)
- locally-commissioned surveys
- market intelligence
- evaluation studies
• Local Enterprise Partnerships have commissioned
consultants to use evidence and data to inform strategies

5. Findings from Local Job Creation in
England (2)
Need strategic expertise, capability and capacity
• Capacity to use available information and intelligence to
‘tell a story’
- facilitated by co-location
- hampered by austerity: cutbacks and fragmentation
- some reductions in quantity and quality of data
- challenges of ‘ownership’ and sharing of data
• Possible solutions:
- establishment of Observatories
including government statisticians
local benchmarking
- more intelligent use of local data in national surveys

6. What Works Centres

7. An example: What Works Centre for
Local Economic Growth

8. For further information
Contact:
Anne.Green@warwick.ac.uk
Institute for Employment Research
University of Warwick, UK