The Brief
Our work enabled six funded organisations to understand and evidence the impact of their programmes on young people’s lives.
CashBack for Communities is a Scottish Government initiative, managed by Inspiring Scotland, that takes money seized from criminals under the proceeds of crime legislation and invests it in programmes and services for young people. We worked with the Scottish Football Association, Scottish Rugby and Basketball Scotland on their alternative curriculum projects using sports. We also worked with the SPFL Trust, Rangers Charity Foundation and Police Scotland to evaluate their programmes aimed at disengaged young people involved in or at risk of criminal behaviour. Social Value Lab provide evaluation support for their programmes over the three years of CashBack Phase 5.
We supported each organisation to implement a programme of self-evaluation with young people. We undertook interviews and focus groups with young people, parents/carers, teachers, programme staff and delivery partners. We analysed the self-evaluation data collected and prepared annual impact reports, examining performance against agreed CashBack outcomes and lessons learned in relation to delivery of the programme.
As a result of our work, organisations had robust evidence to assess whether they had achieved their intended outcomes, had a strong evidence base to inform the future development of their programmes, and were able to satisfy their reporting requirements for CashBack Phase 5.
“We have used Social Value Lab for our Scottish Government funded ‘CashBack for Communities’ evaluation process for the last 5 years and could not speak highly enough about them and their staff. We found the level of support and advice first class and the ability to deliver on time to a high standard was great. I would thoroughly recommend Social Value Lab to any organization who are seeking to undertake evaluation within any project.” – Paul McNeil, Head of Community Football, Scottish Football Association
Paul McNeil (SFA)
