The Lifting Neighbourhoods Together model is a system-change approach delivered 2019-2025 by Community Renewal Trust, a charity which is rethinking approaches to ending persistent poverty. It works by creating a special cultural environment for staff who are based in a small deprived neighbourhood (4000 residents). The team systematically meet as many residents as they can, build capacity and resilience and take a whole-person, whole-neighbourhood approach.
The cost-benefit analysis for such a model needs to consider that there are three types of costs: first tier costs are those of the small number of additional neighbourhood workers who are additional to any pre-existing resource, this includes premises costs to host the team; second tier costs are those related to achieving system change (e.g. system mapping, partnership costs and leadership costs); and third tier costs are those costs which were already going to be spent but were seconded into the team. This reflects that the model is to re-organise existing services/projects into a single, more impactful, team focussed on ending the cycles of poverty for all residents in that neighbourhood.
In this case the cost for the calendar year 2024 were as follows:
| Annualised costs (rounded) | |
| First tier costs (additional long-term costs)
|
£110,000 |
| Secondary costs (additional but temporary costs)
|
£28,000 |
| Third tier costs (non-additional costs from bringing together existing spend) | £190,000 |
The benefits and impact to be included in the analysis include: client financial gain from benefits uplift; client financial gain from entering work (includes net effect of losing out-of-work benefits); social-economic return from wider multiplier effects; savings to pubic agencies. The financial and hard outcomes are ones where we can be confident that the impact Is accurate. All those benefits have been considered with at minimum 50% deadweight, this is means to ensure we are using a conservative estimate and avoiding counting the impact of change that may have happened even without intervention.
Because the Lifting Neighbourhoods Together model is largely about prevention – meeting people before rather than during a crisis – those preventative benefits and savings are harder to measure. An example is that it is hard to note when our work with someone on their health condition has prevented a visit to A&E. The national level data which could provide a sense-check of these at a datazone level will no longer be published until late 2026. As a result, we have included very conservative estimates of these. There is also a very low figure used for the financial impact of increased wellbeing.
All the conversation of outcomes into financial benefits (and socio-economic benefits) is performed using the Greater Manchester Cost Benefit Analysis Tool which is a widely used tool with standardised evidence-based values associated with each item.
| One year annualised benefits | |
| Client financial gain (strong reliability, conservative assumptions) | £523,108 |
| Social and Economic Return on Investment (medium reliability, conservative assumptions) | £1,089,281 |
| Wellbeing and health=prevention savings to goverment (low reliability, very conservative assumptions) | £44,895 |
| Fiscal savings from reduced out-of-work benefits
|
£407,112 |
NB: Each line in this table is additional to the other lines rather than double counting.
These impacts are assessed over only one year. For example a benefit uplift of work outcome may actually have an impact over 1-10 years but only the first year is used to ensure a conservative assumption.
If we take in the full fiscal savings plus economic/social impact and accept that this includes some (conservatively estimated) less well evidenced wellbeing and health prevention impact then the cost benefit ratio of the intervention looking only at that one year would be:
For every £1 spent there is a social return on investment of £4.70.
If we take only the fiscal savings to health spend and government departments the cost benefit ratio would be:
For every £1 spent there is a saving to government of £1.38.
If we take only the cash uplift to residents in work income (net of reduced out-of-work benefits) plus the uplift in other benefits (e.g. ADP) the cost benefit ratio would be:
For every £1 spent there is a financial benefit to residents of £1.59.
CONCLUSION
This Lifting Neighbourhoods Together model requires investment on top of existing spend. If scaling up, it is important to ensure that this spend is offset by savings as well as remaining an overall positive social return on investment. We conclude that even looking at the most conservative assessments there is a positive net financial impact for each of residents and government plus a likely large social return on investment. We note that this needs to be used cautiously as it is internal workings and is experimental in nature.
Link to the report:
