Allister Hayman,
Regen.net,
26 March 2008
Deprived communities are caught in a cycle of regeneration initiatives that have little impact because they do not improve on past policy failings, a report has claimed.
Research by think-tank the New Economics Foundation has said the failure to measure the impact of regeneration policy has led to the perpetuation of ineffective initiatives, leaving some of the most disadvantaged areas of the UK largely unchanged over the past 30 years.
NEF researcher Eilis Lawlor said the evaluation of the impact of regeneration programmes focused on "easy to measure" economic outputs, such as the number of jobs and enterprises created.
These do not provide a "true or sufficient" measurement" of the change to people's lives, Lawlor said.
"An increase in the quantity of jobs in an area does not necessarily change underlying inequalities," she said. "Only by measuring what really matters to the people living in those communities can we break [the] cycle of degeneration."
The report recommended a new approach to measuring change that takes account of a full range of social and environmental returns in order to better inform the development of future policy.
The report is available in full by clicking here
