ADD2643 Major Sports Events Evaluation Report External Research Partner Procurement

1.1.    London is host to several of the largest sporting events in the world – including international football, cricket and athletics; and American sports such as NFL and Major League Baseball. To date, London’s focus has been on securing and delivering this exciting portfolio of global major sporting events. 
1.2.    The team is now keen to ensure we capture clear evidence of the impact on, and benefits to, London. This will enable the GLA to grow its portfolio and have greater impact; and will further safeguard and prioritise GLA investment, in terms of both financial and personnel resources. 
1.3.    Historically, the GLA has used its relationships with event organisers and venue owners (event partners) to share its reports. Often, these reports have demonstrated achievements against the respective sport’s strategic objectives, but have not necessarily measured impacts to the city. While this ad hoc approach has provided useful information, it has not allowed the Major Sports Events team (MSE team) to consistently demonstrate the benefits of our work. 
1.4.    Collating our own evaluation would be a better way to achieve a more consistent approach that demonstrates events’ value to the city; their alignment to mayoral priorities; and benefits to the local communities in London. We believe this investment will produce an evaluation report that is extremely valuable to the GLA. These benefits include:
•    supporting the justification of further investment in major sports events in the future
•    informing the strategic direction of the type of events London should be supporting
•    building an insight-based framework to determine the appropriate investment by the GLA
•    enabling early engagement with event organisers to develop impact programmes in line with mayoral objectives
•    ensuring we evaluate events against our own strategic priorities  
•    building insights portfolio of historical events to support London’s bid for future mega-events
•    strengthening relationships with event partners through shared insights. 
1.5.    The MSE team will work in partnership with event partners to collect data for the Major Sports Evaluation report (MSE Evaluation). We believe that event partners will be supportive of this project due to the benefits, which include:
•    minimal investment providing them with an evaluation assessment that can be used in discussions with future host cities
•    understanding their impact in a capital city to provide benchmarks against other cities
•    supporting their investment in bringing events to London in the future.
1.6.    The MSE team will be responsible for the planning and coordination of the MSE Evaluation. Specifically, these responsibilities include:
•    deciding the scope and purpose of the project
•    managing stakeholder engagement with GLA teams and event partners
•    designing and approving the MSE Evaluation, including measurements against each pillar
•    finalising the method of approach and use of internal and external resources
•    managing the collection of data from event partners and GLA internal resources
•    procuring and managing the external research partner
•    communicating with stakeholders following the report. 
1.7.    However, the MSE team does not have the capacity or expertise to manage the project solely in-house. An external research partner would be required to deliver this project with the following responsibilities:
•    assemble benchmark data from other sports, government and GLA sources 
•    collect primary source data, which cannot be collected from event partners or GLA sources
•    gather social impact stories and information on impact initiatives
•    analyse and process the data received from multiple sources
•    collate and produce the annual report in line with MSE Evaluation objectives
•    support the final development of the MSE Evaluation
•    recommend any changes to the MSE Evaluation for future use.
1.8.    The MSE team has undergone an extensive consultation process with other GLA departments and with London and Partners (L&P). It is evident that some efficiencies can be made by using existing resources, reducing the investment required in an external partner. GLA teams can support the project by:
•    providing expertise and guidance on their specialist area to develop the MSE Evaluation approach
•    developing the event partner questionnaire for data collection
•    providing access to existing data sets or tools of data capture for the project
•    where appropriate, conducting data analysis for the report.
1.9.    The financial overview is set out below:

2.1.    The MSE Evaluation will be a headline annual report that can be read and understood by decision makers within the GLA; and confidentially shared with key stakeholders who have contributed to it.
2.2.    The full MSE Evaluation will be an internal document, not for public consumption. Any individual event information will be sent confidentially to the relevant partner for their own use. 
2.3.    Headlines regarding the whole events programme may be extracted to support future bids in the public domain. In this respect, quantitative analysis such as economic impact would not be attributed to individual events. Only key initiatives would be highlighted to create case studies to support future work.
2.4.    There will be over 100 days of international sport held in London in 2023, each with a varying degree of size and profile. It will not be achievable or appropriate to measure them all. 
2.5.    Ride London, NFL matches, Major League Baseball, the ICC World Test Championship Final, Diamond League Athletics and London ePrix have been assessed against criteria that demonstrate their potential impact against the objectives of the MSE Evaluation. They have been identified as the events for the project in 2023.
2.6.    Once the NFL matches have concluded in November, data collection across all events will commence, with the report ready around January-February 2024. We anticipate these timings will work for event partners, who will have hosted their events in the summer and will need time for their data to be available for the MSE Evaluation.
 

3.1.    Following consultation with GLA departments, four core measurement pillars have been selected to form the basis of the MSE Evaluation. These pillars align to the overall objectives of the project, existing GLA reporting and mayoral priorities. These pillars are outlined in the table below:

Economic impact
3.2.    Economic impact will be focused on the GVA and, where required, ROI of an event. Given many events do not receive direct financial support, ROI would not be included as standard.
3.3.    L&P has developed its own GVA calculator in line with UK Sport’s Event Impacts GVA Evaluation tool. Currently L&P runs its analysis using predicted figures; however, it has agreed to run the calculations post-event using information we supply from event partners.
3.4.    Using L&P to measure GVA will have no cost to the project and will benefit L&P, which can test its predicted model against actual figures.
Reach
3.5.    Reach metrics will focus on broadcast and digital engagement of a major sport event across channels owned by event partners and the GLA. 
3.6.    The GLA Digital team will provide the MSE team with a weekly report on the performance of social media content, relevant to targeted major sports events. 
3.7.    The MSE team will work with event partners to collect their broadcast and digital figures using a post-event questionnaire. This will be designed in collaboration with the GLA Digital team.
Sustainability
3.8.    Sustainability measures have been selected to align with the London Environment Strategy and the United Nations Framework on Climate Change framework, which many event partners have signed up to. These measures include:
•    the transport of spectators and attendees to the event
•    responsible consumption including waste management, packaging and local procurement
•    venue infrastructure including power sources; use of shared, rented or reusable infrastructure; and recyclable materials
•    sustainability innovations
•    advocacy for sustainability such as education schemes, ambassador programmes and promotion. 
3.9.    The MSE team will work with event partners to collect this data using a post-event questionnaire. Due to the onerous amount of data required, and with no carbon calculator available from UK Sport, carbon footprint will not form part of the evaluation. However, if event partners already measure this, it could be added to the report.
Social integration
3.10.    A social integration strategy for London was launched in 2018. It is still relevant, and has the aims of helping Londoners to build meaningful and lasting relationships with each other; supporting them to be active in their communities, and to play a part in the decisions that affect them; and reducing barriers and inequalities, so that Londoners can relate to each other as equals.
3.11.    Event partners will not have the tools to measure social integration, as it will not be a strategic priority. The GLA, with an external research partner, will lead the collection of this data.
3.12.    The GLA Social Policy team has developed social integration indicators that are aligned to national data sets, council surveys and local administrative data. The MSE team will work with the social policy team to design measures relevant to major sports events within this framework. 
3.13.    Given the complexity of this area, in the first year the MSE Evaluation will only target Major League Baseball to measure social integration. 
 

4.1.    Through the social integration measures, we will be capturing the extent to which major sports events supported by the GLA promote equality, and how inclusive they are to all Londoners.  
4.2.    Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the Mayor of London must have ‘due regard’ to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between people who have a ‘protected characteristic’ as defined in the Equality Act 2010 and those who do not. 
4.3.    At this stage, no equality issues have been identified with regard to this project. However, this will be kept under review. 
 

5.1.    The contract for the external research partner will be awarded through a competitive tender process. 
5.2.    At this stage no significant risks or issues have been identified in association with the MSE Evaluation.
5.3.    There are no health or safeguarding implications identified with regard to this work. 
5.4.    Officers will ensure that relevant data privacy requirements are built into the contract with any company conducting surveys on the GLA’s behalf.
5.5.    There are no known conflicts of interests or interests to declare associated with this decision, including from officers drafting or clearing this decision.
5.6.    GLA support for the project will: 
•    support delivery of the GLA’s major sports events framework, ‘London: Home of World Class Sport’
•    increase the business case for economic investment into London
•    support measurement of the delivery of the Mayor’s sports strategy, ‘Sport Unites’
•    understand international exposure for London as a major destination for world-class sport and tourism. 
 

6.1.    Approval is sought to spend £20,000 from the 2023-24 MSE budget to appoint an external research partner through a competitive tender process to lead and produce an MSE Evaluation for London. There is sufficient budget within the current year to fund this request.

7.1.    The next steps are summarised below:

Appendix 1 - Summary of MSE Evaluation