Growing Community Assets (GCA) is about giving communities in Scotland more control and influence over their own future through ownership of assets, such as land, buildings, equipment and energy. GCA has built on our experience of the earlier innovative Scottish Land Fund
To continue and deepen our learning in the area of asset transfer, we commissioned SQW to undertake an evaluation of GCA between 2007 and 2013. The study will assess the impact of GCA and identify factors that support successful community ownership. The evaluation is divided into three phases:
Phase 1: a baseline stage, where the evaluators recorded social, economic and environmental conditions. This allows them to measure progress across these areas as the projects develop.
Phase 2: an initial stage of review of progress towards the programme’s outcomes, including case studies and surveys of people directly involved in projects.
Phase 3: A second stage of review, continuing work begun in the second phase and including investigation of the wider impact of projects on the communities they serve.
The latest report highlights good progress and the very positive effect that projects are having on the lives of people involved and communities as a whole.
About 32,000 people are using GCA-funded facilities, most of them on a regular basis. In most cases, these services and facilities were not available previously. Projects appear to be having a more noticeable impact in rural than in urban areas.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Projects are thinking about how to maintain direct community involvement and the standard of services offered. Our latest summary outlines some of the emerging evidence about factors for success in community ownership. These match and build on some of BIG’s earlier work about successful asset transfer projects
The final report is due in 2013.
Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.