ADD2654 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). All event partners that have been engaged for evaluation in 2023 are supportive of this project due to the following benefits:
•    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 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:
•    development of the MSE Evaluation event partner survey
•    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
•    review of the MSE Evaluation process for subsequent years.
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
•    supporting the development of 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.    It is also worth noting that the MSE team consulted with the Sport team in the original concept design. Once the external research partner has been procured, this cross working will be reinvigorated to ensure the Sport team’s work on NFL is also considered.
1.10.    The financial overview is set out below:

1.11.    A larger financial commitment is required in year one to design and set up the evaluation tools used in the report for all three years. 

2.1.    MSE Evaluation will produce an annual report across three years 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.    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.
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.    Major Sports event over the next three years have been assessed against criteria that demonstrate their potential impact against the objectives of the MSE Evaluation. The following have been identified as events that are likely to be included in the project.

2.6.    Once the NFL matches have concluded in October, data collection across all events will commence, with the report ready around January-February of the following year. 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.
Aligning to mayoral priorities
2.7.    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
2.8.    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.
2.9.    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.
2.10.    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
2.11.    Reach metrics will focus on broadcast and digital engagement of a major sport event across channels owned by event partners and the GLA. 
2.12.    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. 
2.13.    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
2.14.    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. 
2.15.    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
2.16.    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.
2.17.    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.
2.18.    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. 
2.19.    Given the complexity of this area, in the first year the MSE Evaluation will only target one sport to measure social integration. 

3.1.    Promoting social integration to connect, activate and reduce inequalities for Londoners is one of the key strategic objectives for the GLA to support major sports events. Through the social integration measures, the MSE Evaluation will highlight any programmes and activities that support underrepresented groups within London in line with the events that are hosted. 
3.2.    The MSE Evaluation will look to assess the inclusivity of major sports events and associated programmes such as the volunteering programme to understand whether they are open to all, regardless of race, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, or gender reassignment.
3.3.    The MSE team will continue to consult, a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that as many Londoners as possible, including those with protected characteristics, have been considered in the planning of the events and have the opportunity to be involved in some way.
3.4.    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. 
3.5.    At this stage, no equality issues have been identified with regard to this project. However, this will be kept under review. 
 

4.1.    The contract for the external research partner will be awarded through a competitive tender process. 
4.2.    At this stage no significant risks or issues have been identified in association with the MSE Evaluation.
4.3.    There are no health or safeguarding implications identified with regard to this work. 
4.4.    Officers will ensure that relevant data privacy requirements are built into the contract with any company conducting surveys on the GLA’s behalf.
4.5.    There are no known conflicts of interests or interests to declare associated with this decision, including from officers drafting or clearing this decision.
4.6.    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. 
 

5.1.    This decision seeks approval to allocate an additional £30,000 for the Major Sports Events Evaluation Report (MSE Evaluation) that measures the impact of targeted major sports events hosted in London. ADD2643 previously approved £20,000; therefore the total cost allocated to this work is £50,000.
5.2.    The expenditure will occur across three years, allocated as indicated in section 1.9. There is sufficient budget within the Major Sports Events Programme budget to accommodate this request. Future years’ budgets are indicative and subject to the GLA’s annual budget-setting process. To mitigate any risk of the budget not being approved for future years to cover costs following the budget-setting process, the contract will include the usual break clauses that could potentially be exercised if required. 

6.1.    The next steps are summarised below:

Appendix 1: Summary of MSE Evaluation