Welsh Government have appointed OB3 Research, in conjunction with People and Work, Dateb and IFF Research, to evaluate the impact of the ESF supported Communities for Work (CfW) and the Welsh Government funded Communities for Work Plus (CfW+) programmes.
CfW is designed to support people who are economically inactive and long-term unemployed, focusing on two separate groups - those aged 25 and over; and those 16-24 year olds who are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET).
CfW+ supports people who are not eligible for CfW or other regional ESF provision and who are in or at risk of poverty due to a lack of employment. Despite the separate funding streams, CfW and CfW+ delivery teams work together as single combined teams.
The aims of the evaluation are:
To review changes to the delivery of the CfW operations and CfW+ programme since the evaluation of the previous stages of CfW from 2015-2018
To assess the extent to which the programme and operation aims have been achieved and targets met for the lifetime of the programmes since 2015
To provide evidence of the outcomes of the programmes for individuals
To undertake a counterfactual impact evaluation of the programmes, providing evidence of the impact for participants compared to a counterfactual group.
The evaluation will be undertaken between October 2021 and March 2023.
