Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES): phase 2 pilots evaluation

3. Method and analysis

The University of Edinburgh was appointed to carry out an independent evaluation of the LHEES pilots. The evaluation seeks to identify lessons from the 11 Phase 2 pilot projects to inform the future development of this programme, for Scottish Government, local authorities, and project partners. This evaluation focuses on the organisational and social aspects of the LHEES pilots, as well as a review of the reports and other outputs generated by the projects.

This evaluation draws on in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with each of the pilot teams at towards the end of the pilot projects. These included representatives from each local authority and external consultants that they partnered with for the pilots. In some cases, local authority officers and external consultants were interviewed together. Other interviews included just local authority officers (for example, where there was no consultant involved) or just consultants (for example, where consultants worked across several pilot projects). The interviews considered:

• Scope and content of the pilot LHEES
• Activities and processes involved in developing the LHEES
• Skills and resources required to develop the LHEES 
• Perceptions of LHEES, and how this might effectively be rolled out as national policy.

All of the interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and they were normally conducted in the local authority's offices or nearby. The interview data has been analysed according to emerging themes, including: pilot outcomes; the impact of available skills and resource on delivery; partnerships and consultancy; stakeholder engagement; and next steps. These are discussed in Section 4. 

In addition, evaluating the projects included analysing each of the LHEES reports generated by the pilot teams. This analysis included consideration of the specifications provided by Scottish Government and the evaluation questions raised in the previous sections. A summary of all of the Phase 2 LHEES reports is provided in Appendices 2 and 3.