Interim evaluation of the Enhancing Leadership and Management Skills (ELMS) programme

Enhancing Leadership and Management Skills (ELMS) is a flagship programme, funded by the Welsh Government and the European Social Fund (ESF), through the Convergence and Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) Programmes which involves: ‘An agenda of related projects, programmes and schemes in the general field of leadership and management, each contributing towards strategic improvement and support for development skills and capacity in the Welsh economy and within Welsh companies and organisations’. The programme aims to support the leadership and management development of Wales’ business managers, especially [small and medium enterprises] SMEs. The ELMS Convergence and RCE projects were approved in April 2009 and are due to run until December 2015. The overall aim of the evaluation of ELMS is to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the ELMS Convergence and Competitiveness Fund projects including an evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of the Leadership and Management Wales (LMW) Centre for Excellence. The evaluation of LMW has been published as a separate report. [This evaluation found that:] a well established and supportive policy framework exists, which demonstrates that ELMS was conceived on the basis of a clear policy rationale; both the Convergence and RCE business plans developed the ELMS concept in a coherent way and in-line with the policy rationale set out in Skills that Work for Wales and Leading Edge; [and] in line with the objectives of ELMS to up-skill people already in work, the vast majority of participating respondents (94 per cent) said that they were employed and well-established in the labour market. The report makes a series of seven recommendations.

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