Rossendale Valley Energy (RVE), a community energy organisation, commissioned CAG Consultants to develop a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework for their Net Zero Terrace Streets initiative (NZTS). NZTS is led by RVE in partnership with Buro Happold, the Centre for Energy Equality, Electricity North West and other partners. The development of this MEL framework was funded by Ofgem under the RVE-led consortium’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Alpha project. The MEL framework needed to include the monitoring requirements for RVE’s Local Energy Advice Demonstrator (LEAD) project, funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but also provide a framework, guidance and tools for monitoring, evaluation and learning around future projects and activities within the NZTS initiative.
How we delivered the project
CAG developed an overarching MEL framework for the NZTS initiative that is useable now and into NZTS’s future. The framework included tools to assist with detailed project monitoring requirements for RVE’s current LEAD project, in spreadsheet form. But it was not possible to specify detailed arrangements for monitoring, evaluation and learning for future NZTS projects until these projects were themselves defined. So we provided an overarching framework of indicators to inform future MEL activities, developed in consultation with the NZTS team, alongside broad guidance and tools for the development of MEL elements of future projects and activities within the NZTS initiative.
The steps involved in developing the framework included:
- Review of NZTS and LEAD project documentation
- Consultation with key stakeholders within RVE and partner organisations
- A workshop with key stakeholders to discuss potential MEL indicators
- Attendance at a further stakeholder workshop to discuss what NZTS success means to different groups
- Discussion of the information collected by the Fairer Warmth (FW) App, developed by the Centre for Energy Equality, which acts as a hub for collecting a database of customers across the LEAD project and wider NTZS initiative
- Discussion of DESNZ monitoring requirements for the LEAD project
The outputs and recommendations were tested with the RVE team and key stakeholders and refined in response to feedback.
Objectives achieved
Within a tight timeframe and budget, CAG developed a practical MEL framework that met RVE’s immediate needs for the LEAD project and that provided guidance on MEL elements of future projects within the NZTS initiative. The overarching indicator framework aimed to define ‘what success looks like’ for NZTS, providing a menu of process and impact indicators, grouped by theme. CAG’s report identified how evidence can be collected for each indicator and provided tools (e.g. survey text, checklists) to help with evidence collection. Some of the tools and guidance related to monitoring and collecting feedback from NZTS service users, while others related to learning about the perspectives of other stakeholders (e.g. financiers) and to sharing emerging learning from NZTS within and beyond the inter-disciplinary team.
For further information, please contact Mary Anderson at ma@cagconsult.co.uk