Report 4: Interim Evaluation

H.3Community engagement

There is already some early evidence to suggest that the Games are having a positive social impact. Activity concerned with community engagement and volunteering continued to gather pace during Games-time although a significant number of events had already taken place prior to the Opening Ceremony.

Games-related projects have been successful in capturing the interest of numerous people across the country, which has resulted in the recruitment of volunteers and engagement with local communities. This includes the significant number of people across the country who have helped to deliver or participated in an Inspire Mark project and/or attended an event which formed part of the Cultural Olympiad. There is also some evidence that those who have participated in Games-related activity intend to continue being involved in their local community and perceive that this activity has helped to increase community cohesion in their area. However, at this stage there is limited evidence of the more general effect on participation in volunteering and culture, and the outcomes experienced by participants and the sector.

Significant work has been undertaken to engage with children and young people. Get Set, for example, achieved high penetration in terms of the proportion of eligible establishments which registered with the programme. Evaluation evidence suggests that participation had a positive effect on pupils and teachers and the view of teachers is that the programme helped to raise pupil aspirations, confidence/self-esteem and engagement in learning. A number of smaller-scale projects targeting disadvantaged young people have also taken place, along with activity to support the involvement of the further and higher education sectors. Elements of the Cultural Olympiad such as Stories of the World and Tate Movie have also resulted in the involvement of significant numbers of young people.

Activity to inspire sustainable living has also made good progress in terms of engagement with its target audiences, although evidence of the extent to which this has resulted in the uptake of sustainable behaviours is not yet available.

Work to change attitudes towards disability was largely focused on the Paralympic Games itself, complemented by additional work to improve understanding of disability and encourage disabled people to participate in community activity and social action.

Although considerable progress has been made in terms of filling gaps in the evidence base for the community engagement and participation legacy theme, a significant amount of research activity will take place in the latter part of 2012 and this evidence will be incorporated into Report 5.

H.4East London

While the full legacy impacts on the regeneration of East London will not fully emerge for a number of years, what is already apparent is that the planning and preparation for the Olympic Games have made a significant contribution to the physical transformation of East London. Based on the evidence available it can be concluded that without the Games the largely derelict, polluted and inaccessible site would have remained for the foreseeable future, the new Olympic venues would not have been constructed and the Olympic Park would not have been created. Coupled with this, the hosting of the 2012 Games has had a catalytic effect on a number of significant transport improvements at Stratford station and on the North London Line, to name but two, as well as a number of public realm improvements throughout the host boroughs. Furthermore, the 2012 Games has also leveraged wider private sector benefits, the most notable of which is the role that the Games played in bringing forward Westfield, Stratford City – and all the employment and economic benefits associated with it – by between five and seven years. As a result of this activity, parts of East London already look, feel and function differently to how they did before London was awarded the right to host the 2012 Games, and perhaps more significantly to how they would have done had London not been awarded the right to host the Games.

It is a transformation that will be built on post-Games as it is clear that the LLDC has developed a comprehensive programme of activity, which if delivered as intended will see the development of a significant number of new homes (both affordable and family) as well as a number of high quality community and social facilities including both primary and secondary schools and health centres. This transformation appears to already be impacting on the community with a notable proportion of those who had moved into the host boroughs within the last year stating that the regeneration of the area was an important factor in their decision to move.

Another positive impact that is already apparent is that the activities related to the Games, either directly (eg the construction of the Olympic Park) or indirectly (eg employment at Westfield Stratford City), have created a significant amount of employment opportunities; a notable proportion of which have helped workless Londoners from the six host boroughs into employment. While it is not possible to calculate a total figure (due to the different sources of data) the evidence available suggests that these are likely to be in the tens of thousands.

Finally, in terms of the overarching objective that: "within 20 years, the communities which host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will enjoy the same social and economic chances as their neighbours across London" it is clear that to date, good progress has been made with East London 'closing the gap' with the rest of London on two-thirds of the socio-economic Convergence indicators, including those related to education and skills, crime and health.