Evaluation of the New Entrepreneur Scholarships

Learning and Skills Council

In December 2006 CFE was commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to undertake an evaluation of the New Entrepreneur Scholarship (NES) Programme. 

NES helps people living in deprived areas to start in business where they would otherwise be unable to and equips them with transferable business management skills.  The programme is managed and delivered by university business schools, enterprise agencies and the Prince's Trust and provides a comprehensive package of support including part-time management education, grants and on-going business mentoring.  Since its inception in 2000, approximately 6,000 scholarships have been awarded across the nine English regions.

The evaluation took place over a five month period and through qualitative and quantitative research assessed:

  • Partnership management structures
  • Operational aspects of delivering the programme including quality of teaching and mentoring
  • The extent to which the programme reaches its target audience
  • Participants' labour market destinations, including business start-up and survival rates, employment generation, turnover, reliance on additional paid employment and benefits and social-psychological benefits including the acquisition of soft skills
  • Factors influencing business survival, growth or failure (including those particular to deprived communities)

The research findings were able to inform the future strategic direction of the programme including enhancing regional partnerships, client recruitment and the content and focus of management education, in addition to creating an initial benchmark for the impact of the programme on client destinations.