Project:- Renew Wales

Project Brief

Renew Wales was originally devised by a group of social entrepreneurs with the aim of getting advice and support to innovative and active groups taking action on climate change. It also aimed to stimulate action in groups who had no previous knowledge or expertise doing environmental and climate change projects. Funded by Sustainable Steps and hosted by DTA Wales, it has the following outcomes:

1. More communities have better knowledge, skills and abilities to allow them to:
   • take action to address the causes of climate change,
   • build resilience to climate change and
   • live in a more sustainable way.
2. More communities are starting to reduce their carbon footprint or adapt to the impacts of climate change
3. Learning from the programme informs future climate change and sustainable development policy and project replication.

Funding has now been secured to support Renew Wales through to March 2018. We are looking for an evaluator to support us during this critical phase of Renew Wales.

About the model

Renew Wales has a team of 25 Coordinators. The Coordinators are geographically spread and are tasked with developing action plans with the groups. Coordinators are paid based on the number of days they spend supporting their groups. A much wider network of mentors supports the Coordinators to deliver aspects of the action plan.

None of the Coordinators works full time on Renew Wales and for most, it makes up a small part of their wider role. This allows the Coordinators to be connected into the wider voluntary sector landscape. All Coordinators and Mentors must be hosted by a third sector organisation.

We are constantly developing our pool of mentors and as we support groups to develop their projects we are aiming to progress them to become paid mentors for other groups delivering similar projects.

About the evaluation

One of the downsides of the Renew Wales model is the Coordinators are not readily available to support the evaluation. They are resourced for 0.5 days per year to complete forms and contribute to the evaluation. There are also opportunities through the coordinator training days to collect information from them.

We will be working with coordinators to develop an assessment tool to guide their interactions with projects and there will be an opportunity for the evaluators to inform this to aid the collection of outcome data. We have also used self-evaluation tools, in particular reflective diaries, that have contributed to our understanding of impact in previous years and we would welcome ideas from evaluators about how to develop this further.

The focus of the Evaluation

The primary audience for this evaluation will be the Renew Wales steering group. We will make the evaluation report available to relevant stakeholders, including the Welsh Government and will use the findings to help showcase our successes and learning. We want the evaluators to act as a critical friend and help us identify ways the project could be improved.

The objectives can be summarised into two overarching areas:

• Understanding the model and what the added value of the Renew Wales model is
• Understanding the impact of Renew Wales and how it delivers both the Sustainable Steps and Wider outcomes

These are considered in more detail below.

Understanding the model

As set out above Renew Wales has a different way of working too many projects and programmes. We are therefore interested in using this phase of the evaluation to understand in much more detail what the added value of the Renew Wales approach is and how it compares to other projects and programmes. We are also interested in learning about another peer to peer projects and programmes and to take any learning from them.

In particular, we are interested in understanding:

• What is the added value of taking this approach?
• How does this model compare in terms of costs and benefits to other programmes or projects?
• What are the similarities and differences between this and another peer to peer networking models?
• What are the critical success factors for both delivering support through mentors and coordinators and achieving project outcomes?

Understanding the impact

A key role of the evaluator will be to collect quantitative and qualitative data. We also expect the appointed evaluator to support us in identifying appropriate intermediate outcomes and proxy indicators to help us demonstrate the success of the project.

In particular, we are interested in understanding:

• What contribution does Renew Wales make to the indicators of the Future Generations and Wellbeing Act
• How does Renew Wales contribute to the anti-poverty priorities of Welsh Government
• What the long term impact of Renew Wales funding has been. We will work with you to identify projects we can re-visit to understand the impact
• What is the impact of Renew Wales on reducing climate change?
• How does the impact of Renew Wales compare to other models

We are also interested in any suggested approaches for helping us to demonstrate the Return on Investment, Local Investment Models or Cost-Benefit of the Renew Wales programme.

Client Requirement

The client is looking for consultants to provide a reported bid outlining how they would produce a study that outlines the following:

An evaluation of the Renew Wales model to ensure a platform for future activity.

Project Timescale

The duration of the project is 6 Months.

Deliverable

Consultants need to produce a 6,000-word report outlining the main objectives of the study and the methods that would be employed – following the structure provided. In addition, an ‘A3 Report’ summarising the approach to this project needs to be provided.

Assessment Questions:

1. Client Aims & Objectives
   • Clear identification of the Client’s requirements set out the objectives of the study
2. Supporting Evidence
   • Critical Identification and Evaluation of suitable industry studies and frameworks applicable to the project
   • A critical exploration of the relevant academic theory to support the subjects covered in the project
3. Gannt Chart & Methods
   • Identification, explanation and critical evaluation of the range of activities needed to complete the Client’s project.
   • Understanding and critical reflection in scheduling the activities e.g. timelines, dependent 25% activities, etc
4. Contribution
   • A critical evaluation of the deliverable outcomes of the project.
   • Clear meeting of the Client objectives set for the project