Community-Led Local Development
CLLD Programme Scotland
Four years of measuring social value across Scotland’s community-led programme
Scotland’s Community Led Local Development programme uses the Social Value Engine, with analysis by Rose Regeneration, to measure outcomes across twenty Local Action Groups. On the restated 2025/26 reporting basis, 373 projects generated £69.74 million of social value from £14.60 million of investment, a return of £4.78 per £1.
Community Led Local Development (CLLD) gives rural and island communities across Scotland the power to tackle their own local challenges. Funded by the Scottish Government and managed by twenty Local Action Groups (LAGs) made up of local volunteers from the public, private and third sectors, the programme awards grants to community projects that support local development strategies. These range from village halls, community transport and sports facilities to heritage, tourism, food and community energy. 2025/26 is the fourth year in a row that social value has been measured across the whole programme using the Social Value Engine, with Rose Regeneration analysing and reporting the results. Over those four years the relationship has grown from a first year involving twelve LAG partnerships into a national approach. Every Local Action Group in Scotland now uses it, and around 1,500 project assessments have been completed.
The challenge
CLLD is a bottom-up programme by design. Its strength lies in hundreds of locally decided grants, many of them small, spread across very different communities, from island townships to the edges of the central belt. The same feature makes it hard to tell one clear national story about what the programme achieves. The programme needed to show the combined value of hundreds of small grants, a third of them under £10,000. Twenty independent, volunteer-led LAGs needed a common, credible way to measure outcomes while leaving room for local priorities. Partners also needed to show how the programme contributes to Scottish Government aims on climate action, rural services and transport, heritage and tourism, food and drink, and community empowerment. The case for continued investment became more pressing as the 2025/26 allocation fell to £9 million from £12.2 million the year before, with more going to capital projects. Capital projects measured in their first year capture only a small part of their eventual return. Participation figures and individual project stories could show the breadth of activity, but could not show its combined value in terms that ministers, officials and the wider rural policy community would recognise.
The solution
Since 2022/23, every Local Action Group has had access to the Social Value Engine, with a named SVE adviser to support it. A core proxy template linked to the CLLD themes gives all LAGs a common starting point. LAGs that want a closer fit can draw on the full SVE library, using its AI functionality to find bespoke, evidence-based financial proxies. Each project is adjusted for deadweight, leakage, displacement, drop-off and attribution, using an additionality table based on UK norms, in line with HM Treasury Green Book principles. Every outcome is also linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Rose Regeneration combines the LAG returns into one programme report, with an individual report for each of the twenty areas and an interactive dashboard for detailed comparison. The approach has developed year on year. In year one, twelve partnerships took part. By 2024/25 all twenty LAGs were using the tool. In 2025/26, LAGs applied 281 different financial proxies across 1,255 proxy applications, compared with 46 proxies used ten or more times the year before. This allows outcomes to be measured more precisely and gives a richer picture of the programme’s impact. The 2025/26 analysis uses a transparent restated basis. Projects returning £0.90 per £1 or less, mostly feasibility studies and capital works in their first year, are reported separately rather than counted in the headline. The £4.78 headline return therefore reflects this reporting basis, rather than every assessed project, and identifies projects whose value will appear in later years.
Key outcomes
Closing summary
Four years of consistent measurement have given CLLD a comparable evidence base that tracks how a national programme’s social value changes as its funding, priorities and project mix change. The findings are shaping how the programme describes its contribution to rural access, local economies, community energy and community wellbeing. The next step is to follow the value of capital investment over time. Re-measuring a group of capital and community energy projects in 2026/27 and 2027/28 would give direct evidence of how much single-year assessment understates long-term returns.
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