Start and Grow was a three year programme of support in the more disadvantaged local authority areas of England to help people to start and grow businesses that would employ other people.
It was funded through the Government’s Regional Growth Fund and was unusual in having a five year evaluation period.
Start and Grow UK is serious about evaluation and commissioned a major piece of work, at level 4 on the Maryland Scale of evaluation excellence, to ensure that a programme of this scale was thoroughly and properly evaluated. Although there are further conclusions to follow, we are now able to share some of the key findings of the research.
The most eye-catching headlines relate to business survival rates.
After 12 months there was little difference between the programme rates and the general background rates.
After 24 months, 78.3% of the Start and Grow businesses continued to trade against national average figures of 72.1%.
By 36 months, this figure had widened further to 63.8% vs. 55.7%.
We believe this vindicates the government’s decision to support programmes like Start and Grow generally and our delivery of this programme.
The initial version of the final report is attached. It will be updated with a full counterfactual analysis, when it is available.
Read the report here