In previous chapters, we have suggested that there is an emerging new generation of locally developed area-based initiatives (ABIs) that are founded on an ecological understanding of place. We have suggested that they may be able overcome the tendency of many earlier ABIs to focus on single issues and narrow targets rather than on the real complexities of disadvantage as experienced in place. We have, moreover, suggested that it is possible for locally based organisations or partnerships to take the lead in developing an ecological analysis of local outcomes, and to use this to inform the development of strategic and operational plans. In this chapter, we now want to explore how the new style of ABIs we are proposing could best be monitored and evaluated.

This, in turn, focuses our attention on a fundamental dilemma in the monitoring and evaluation of ABIs’ impacts. ABIs – whatever their form – have always been underpinned by the rationale that focusing intensively on disadvantaged areas is necessary to be able to tackle the factors that produce poor outcomes in those areas. We have argued that tackling this complex array of factors and the processes through which they interact is a long-term process, in which improving particular outcomes demands interventions at points some way distant from the outcomes themselves. In other words, it is not enough to intervene in symptomatic issues – interventions must also be made in the underlying causes of those symptoms.

However, ABIs have to be funded in some way, and newly emerging ABIs, as in Weston or Heybury, also consume considerable amounts of in-kind resources in terms of time, energy and commitment in ventures that are inherently risky. Their sponsors and partners rightly need to know whether their investment is bringing any returns. If, as is often the case, the ultimate funder is, at least in part, central government (for even without discrete funding for an ABI, the professionals involved are likely to be publicly funded), there is also likely to be a concern to show that those returns are in line with national policy priorities and that they are delivered in a timely and cost-effective manner. Not surprisingly, therefore, monitoring and evaluation activities have tended to focus on relatively short-term improvements relating to a few priority outcomes – a situation at odds with complex long-term strategies.