Local Authority 'Capability' and 'Capacity' Building Grant Funding Pilot Evaluation

In January 2021 a new national regulator for construction products was announced and would operate from within the Office for Product Safety & Standards (OPSS), formerly part of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy. OPSS has been working to build its evidence base on construction products and to implement recommendations from the Dame Judith Hackitt Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety.

As part of its desire to work effectively to support and coordinate the activities of Local Authorities delivering against their own statutory responsibilities towards construction product safety, OPSS has begun funding a number of small projects by Local Authorities to support the development of 'capability' and 'capacity' building in relation to these statutory responsibilities (both under current 2013 regulations, and ahead of the new regulations anticipated in 2024). The new regulations are a core pillar of Government's building safety reforms in the aftermath of the tragic Grenfell Tower fire. This package of funding consists of 14-18 'procurements' of ca. £10k to English, Scottish, and Welsh Local Authorities, with the potential for further funding to a number of Northern Irish Local Authorities.

OPSS now wishes to evaluate that spend, in order to learn lessons about how to most effectively target and support future grant funding. This work will support the expectation that OPSS seeks to evaluate the impact of its efforts to effect meaningful cultural change in the construction products sector in support of the broader goals of the Building Safety Bill. The work will also provide methodological lessons for the evaluation of Local Authority grant funding across OPSS' broader remit.

This research project will constitute of interviews with key programme coordinating stakeholders within Local Authorities that have received funding. With scope for further interviews with two sets of comparator Local Authorities consisting of those that expressed no interest in - and therefore received no - funding, and those that began the process of applying for funding before withdrawing their applications.

The outputs of this work will inform the design and targeting of future funding to Local Authorities to support 'capability' and 'capacity' building in relation to construction product enforcement activity, including providing understanding of:

• The appropriate 'scale' of discrete funding and what it is likely that this will enable Local Authorities to achieve

• Further barriers to 'capability' and 'capacity' building, and how these may be overcome

• What is needed for Local Authorities in terms of further support (time, input, etc) that may maximise effective utilisation of funding, the form that support might take, and how OPSS can provide it.

In sum, this project will allow OPSS to evaluate how funding provided to Local Authorities has been used and how it has helped to improve services which will ultimately help the taxpayer in the long run.