Rural Councils Victoria, Draft 16 December 2014

Rural Councils Victoria

Project1.6

NRCP Four Year Evaluation

Project Charter

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to NRCP

1.2 Context……………………………………………………………………………… 3

1.3 Project Description

1.4 Project Objectives…………………………………………………………………. 6

2. The Project

2.1Project Outcomes and Deliverables

2.2Project Scope...... 8

2.3Project Stakeholders

2.4 Project Roles and Responsibilities ……………………………………………… 9

2.5Project Schedule/Plan...... 11

2.6Project Budget and Resources Required

2.7Other Related Projects...... 12

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Networked Rural Council Program (NRCP)

The 38 rural councils that comprise Rural Councils Victoria (RCV) are encountering a range of challenges as a result of dispersed small populations, demographic trends, national and global technological and economic developments. The combination of these drivers creates a complex and dynamic context within which rural councilsmust plan for and adapt to change.

Local governments play a critical role in supporting and influencing regional development, and in communicating the challenges and opportunities regions face to other levels of government.

RCV is focused on supporting growth and delivering economic development initiatives across Victoria. The network is passionate about the liveability and viability of rural areas, particularly in terms of employment, improving opportunities and accessing critical services including transport, education, childcare and healthcare.

The State Government has recognised that the 38 rural councils are often better able to understand and respond to challenges by working in collaboration. The Networked Rural Councils Programhas been funded by the Victorian government through Regional Development Victoria ($3.3m over four years) tosupport rural councils to plan and adapt to change in more sustainable ways, and to participate in decision-making processes that impact on regions through coordinated, collaborative and networked approaches.

Networked Rural Councils projects undertaken by RCV address current challenges faced by rural councils, including the development of business management practices to enhance local government performance and the implementation of strategies to attract new residents, and retain existing residents inrural communities, thereby promoting the social and economic sustainability of those communities

The RCV work program provides mechanisms for research, engagement and coordination responding to the mutual challenges of the 38 rural councils. Under the funding agreement and through the program activities RCV is required to:

  1. Be a collective voice: coordinate effective liaison between the 38 rural councils, State and Commonwealth governments and key stakeholders.
  2. Enable local solutions: deliver key RCV events to facilitate networking, learning, capacity building, and external communication and identify opportunities to leverage/ partner with other regional events.
  3. Create an interactive learning hub: lead and/ or contribute to the development of evidence-based policy and strategy in relation to key RCV priority areas in partnership with the State, MAV or other bodies e.g. Universities.
  4. Build resilience and capacity: build the capacity of councillors and council officers to support economic development and increase the sustainability of rural communities.
  5. Strengthen a sense of place: develop evidence-based strategies and initiatives to improve the attraction and retention of residents and businesses in rural communities.

1.2 Project context

Through the NRCP funding agreement, RCV is charged to plan and deliver a range of research, policy development and capacity building activities with rural councils to strengthen their networks, enhance their individual and regional performance and increase the sustainabilityof rural communities. The development of the NRCP work program is driven by a strategic planning cycle underpinned by ongoing consultation and engagement with members and key stakeholders and the collection and analysis of relevant evidence.

The most recent strategic planning cycle, completed in June 2014, produced RCV Tomorrow, Strategic Plan 2014 -16. Through this process the RCV membership confirmed the vision of RCV as the alliance representing the 38 rural Victoriancouncils supporting and promoting sustainable,liveable and prosperous rural communities. Based on the prioritiesand aspirations expressed by members and stakeholders, theRCV Executiveendorsed objectives to:

  • Provide practical support to improve the capacity, capability and sustainability of rural councils
  • Identify and promote the collective interests of the 38 rural councils and their communities
  • Increase the recognition and acknowledgment of RCV as the body representing rural councils
  • Secure the operational future of RCV, and position it to advance the interests and aspirations of its members.

In delivering these objectives, RCV represents and supports rural councils in the community, in liaison withother levels of government and through interactions with other sectors and groups.

The NRCP program is organised under five work streams:

  1. Governance and advocacy
  1. Networking and information sharing
  1. Policy and research
  1. Training andcapacity building
  1. Population attraction andretention

Program initiatives range from one off, short term projects to more complex initiatives delivered over consecutive years. Each initiative is guided by a Project Charter endorsed by the RCV Executive and RDV as the funding body.

An Annual Workplan is developed by RCV and endorsed by the State Minister for Regional and Rural Development. The Workplan outlines the priority initiatives for that financial year. In order to maintain a high level of accountability to the funder, project partners and key stakeholders, RCV undertakes comprehensive evaluation and reporting of outcomes against an agreed evaluation framework. This project will culminate evaluation and reporting for the NRCP over the four year period. Previous evaluation exercises that will inform this four year analysis include reviews undertaken in years two and three of the NRCP.

The Year 1 and 2 Review

In 2013, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) was engaged by RCV to develop the NRCP evaluation framework, and to evaluate the first two years of the NRCP Program.

The evaluation framework was designed to:

  • Provide an objective and systematic way of reporting on the outcomes delivered by the NRCP;
  • Enable assessment of the NRCP’s efficiency, effectiveness and value for money
  • Facilitate the capture and transfer learnings from individual programs and highlight where the RCV could channel future effort
  • Align with the Victorian Government’s Evaluation Framework for the Regional Growth Fund.

Based on the findings of the evaluation of the first two years of the program (2011-2013), PwC’s recommendations addressed:

  1. Advocacy and communications: reassess the inclusion of the budget submissions (as well as informal lobbying of State and Federal Government) in the NRCP as there were not resources available to commit to the degree desired by the member councils.
  1. Tools and resources: a focus going forward on financial sustainability, business processes and regional collaboration, and reconsidering methods of delivery to enhance engagement.
  1. Digital delivery and project updates: implementing training and project updates via webinar type arrangements.
  1. Engagement with ED staff and regional representatives.
  1. Regional representative engagement: RCV executive representatives are involved in a bi-annual workshop with councils in their region to share NRCP updates as well as providing the opportunity for members to share ideas and leverage existing approaches.
  1. Rural liveability: continued focus on this tenet of the NRCP through widespread piloting, increased partnerships and roll out of the Open Days.

Year three review:

In year 2014, Polish Consulting was engaged to use the PwC evaluation framework to reviewyear three NRCP delivery and,basedon the learnings from that review, to makerecommendations to strengthen the evaluation framework. Key recommendations of this review addressed:

1. Progress with the Year 3 Workplan

Recommendation 1: that RCV ensures workplans are feasible, clearly linked to the agreed NRCP and RCV objectives and member priorities, and are regularly reviewed.

2. Learning from Mid-Term Evaluation

Recommendation 2: that RCV revisit the mid-term evaluation recommendation concerning ‘Digital delivery and project updates’ to maximize access to all NRCP resources, tools and training opportunities.

3. Longer Term Impacts

Recommendation 3: that RCV be explicit about how the NRCP workplan activities will bring about positive change, what change is expected and what the other contributing factors are.

Recommendation 4: that RCV strategically positions the Rural Summit within the LG sector and develops a more sustainable business model for it.

Recommendation 5: that all NRCP projects are leveraged or adapted to encourage greater take-up by rural councils.

Recommendation 6: that RCV develops a stronger and more diverse partnership approach to progress the NRCP and RCV agenda.

4. Barriers to Engagement

Recommendation 7: that RCV Executive and RCV staff orientate more towards being a membership organisation.

Recommendation 8: that RCV make the innovation and initiatives of member councils more accessible across the RCV membership.

5. Evaluation and Learning

Recommendation 9: that RCV Executive review and revise the Evaluation Framework to better reflect the ‘change’ articulated in Recommendation 3.

Recommendation 10: that RCV build relevant key evaluation questions (KEQ’s) into individual project scoping and project evaluations and determine the most appropriate timeframes and methods for capturing learning and evaluation of individual project outcomes and impacts.

Another key outcome of the Year Three Review was a set of considerations to inform the design of the final, four year evaluation, to ensure capture of the breadth and depth of impacts attributable to NRCP and provide insights to inform future RCV priorities and processes. These included:

  • The need to refine the NRCP Evaluation Framework to better meet the needs of RDV, MAV and RCV.
  • To strengthen the Evaluation framework and provide more targeted results to inform improvements, review and refine the indicators and the related data inputs to ensure they are measuring what is most important to RCV and RDV.
  • Include relevant performance indicators and measures in each Year 4 project scope. Project charters currently include objectives and deliverables but no measures to determine whether the objectives have been met. Eg using a different template to demonstrate how the goal, objectives and deliverables lead to outcomes, meet NRCP objectives or link to KEQ’s, and articulate how RCV will measure the quality of the outputs or deliverables and what the appropriate timeframe for measuring and evaluating is. RCV should have processes to capture what works, how councils have taken the ideas and resources and made it work for their own context.
  • To be robust and useful, member surveys need greater, and more representative, response rates to be strong indicators of the membership at large. Event evaluations should be designed to attract a response from high percentage of participants.
  • designing data collection into the Summit event itself to minimize reliance on participants answering an online survey. The survey data can also undergo more detailed analysis based on variables listed below:
  • geographic spread or nominating councils
  • respondents role (councillor, CEO or officer) as many projects and events target these particular
  • attendance or participation (asking questions of people who have not participated)
  • If the 2013 evaluation survey is rerun in 2015 as part of the final evaluation, RCV should consider incorporating any relevant questions from the RCV Tomorrow survey, developing a targeted promotional strategy to ensure a greater response rate from a wider section of stakeholders, and include more detailed analysis of the results. In addition to the survey RCV might consider compiling some case studies of projects from the earlier phases of NRCP, similar to the ones contained in this review document.
  • In terms of more specific data related to particular NRCP objectives and KEQ’s, RCV conducted an Economic Development survey in 2011 (based on an earlier one in 2007), which had a response from all 38 councils. This could be reviewed to see if it could usefully be repeated to get some indication of change in the Economic Development activity and impact across all councils. The survey was based on respondent’s perceptions of what industries were important and likely to be important in the future. RCV can compare these perceptions with other data on industry growth to demonstrate how data can and should influence planning. In the 2011 survey there was a decrease in councils considering attracting new business as effective strategy. This finding relates directly to RCV’s current workplan.
  • A consistent approach to capturing member’s views and priorities and the development of a set of criteria for RCV to make decisions about priority projects would improve transparency and RCV’s ability to identify trends and impacts. The mid- term evaluation workshop (May 2013) developed a set of criteria that might form the starting point for this discussion.
  • practical
  • achievable
  • ability to influence
  • measurable, achieves a result
  • cost benefit
  • shared priority/universal
  • the impact of the initiative/project should be on the community
  • address root cause (not symptom)
  • not being addressed by another party

This should be a transparent process so that members can clearly see what the collective views are and how they have been prioritized.

  • Changes in workplans have proved necessary to respond to the changing LG context, government reform and members’ priorities. The reasons behind workplan changes need to be communicated clearly and the potential impacts on performance, delivery and sustainability of existing projects needs to be recognized. New projects need detailed back grounding and scoping.
  • It is important for RCV to incorporate RCV Tomorrow impact measures into the Evaluation Framework to avoid having two sets of objectives and measures operating. There is significant alignment between NRCP objectives and RCV Tomorrow’s value proposition as indicated in the table below. The measures outlined in RCV Tomorrow should be tested against the existing measures and refined to be as targeted and measurable as possible. Baseline data related to RCV Tomorrow measures should be collected within the first quarter of Year 4, the start of the planning cycle.

2. The Project

The purpose of this project is togain arobust understanding of the outcomes, impacts and potential of the NRCP and RCV to inform future program planning an implementation..

The objectives of the project are:

  • To gather and analyse appropriate quantitative and qualitative data to gauge the effectiveness, efficiency and impacts of NRCP activities over four years
  • To engage members of the RCV network and other key stakeholders to evaluate the NRCP.

RCV will seek to engage a Supplier to deliver this project that is:

a) Able to demonstrate previous experience in:

  • Conducting evaluations of funded programs
  • The delivery of robust evaluation reports

b) Able to demonstrate a strong understanding of:

  • State Government funded grant programs, including contract management and reporting requirements
  • Victorian Government priorities, particularly relating to regional development and Local Government
  • the role of Local Government
  • the NRCP operating environment – including the MAV, RCV, State Government – RDV and LGV

c) Able to provide the most feature rich solution that meets or exceeds the requirements set out in this document

d)Prepared to work collaboratively with project partners and stakeholders

e) Able to provide a price structure in-line with the budget allocated for this project.

2.1Project Outcomes and Deliverables

The expected project outcomes are:

  • Robust evidence about the performance of NRCP program as a whole over the four year period, including reference to the performance of individual projects;
  • A clear view of costs relative to the benefits of the NRCP program over the four years;
  • A clear understanding amongst key stakeholders of learnings from the first, four year NRCP to inform the priorities /directions of future NRCP.

The key project deliverables are:

  • Draft and final Evaluation Reports for NRCP 2011 – 2015, including documentation of methodology, information sources, stakeholders engaged and findings, and an Executive Summary.
  • Draft and final Recommendations report for RCV and RDV, and an Executive Summary.
  • Workshop with Project Advisory Group
  • Deliver a workshop with key RCV staff and Executive Committee members to present the project outcomes and ensure participants have sufficient understanding to be able to action recommendations where supported.
  • Present project outputs to RDV staff and ensure participants have sufficient understanding to be able to action recommendations where supported.

2.2 Measuring successand Risk Assessment

Performance standardsformeasuring the success of this project include:

Performance Standards / Measures and Strategies
Outcomes and Deliverable: / Project delivers outcomes and:
  • A comprehensive evaluation report to the satisfaction of the RCV Executive and the funder, RDV.
  • Recommendations based on the findings of the evaluation, for consideration in the design and development of future programs and projects.
  • Performance of the project against the project’s objectives

Stakeholders: / Stakeholders report satisfaction with:
  • their engagement in the evaluation process;
  • the quality of the evaluation process and report; and
  • the relevance of recommendations arising from the evaluation.
As reported in feedback gathered from all informants and stakeholders during the project; and via a survey at the completion of the project.
Timelines: / The project will be delivered on time, in keeping with key milestones set out in the project contract.
Budget: / The project will be delivered on or under budget, in keeping with arrangements set out in the project contract.
Quality: / Key stakeholders will report their satisfaction with the quality of the assessment methodology, the report and the recommendations arising.
Impact: / The evidence provided in the evaluation report and recommendations arising will prove valuable in the context of:
  • future program and project planning and management by RCV, and
  • the design and management of future funding programs by RDV
As determined on the basis of feedback collected from relevant stakeholders one year after completion of the project.

Risk Assessment

An analysis of likely risks to the successful delivery of the project should be provided by the proponent, along with an assessment of their likelihood and impact and strategies to manage those risks / impacts, as below: