If you are looking for funding, either to continue a service or start something new, you will be required to show that it will make a real difference in your local community.

Robust data showing how your service delivers long term outcomes will become more important, especially as competition for funds increases. Showing how you can help meet non-play outcomes and targets is also important.

When you developed your project, you would have thought about the benefits you were hoping it would bring to local children, their families and the community.

So it might help to think about the terms, outcomes, outcome indicators, outputs and inputs when you are working on your aims and objectives as part of your planning. These will be based on the discussions you had in your earlier planning of the project (see Creating a plan).

Show clearly how your project demonstrates the following:

• Outcomes: the change and effects that happen as a result of your provision, i.e. what impact and difference has your activity made to people’s lives. Remember, play can contribute to other outcomes for children as well as being an outcome in itself.
• Outcome indicators: the things you can measure to show whether you have achieved your desired outcomes. If you have SMART objectives in your original planning and action plan these will help show progress towards meeting your aims. Some examples include: how many children benefit, whether they live in disadvantaged areas, gathering anectdotal evidence and case studies such as whether a child going to a free play service in the holidays help his/her parents to work?
• Outputs: the services and facilities you deliver. What you do to support children’s play day-to-day. For example, your opening times if you are a staffed play provision, numbers of sessions or number of sites delivered, the activities you provide, and whether your services are targeted at particular groups. 
• Inputs: the resources you use to achieve your objectives. For example, money, premises, play spaces, materials, equipment, staff and management knowledge.

At a strategic level, the Every Child Matters outcomes framework can be used to demonstrate how your activity contributes to childhood well-being. Every Child Matters outlines the underpinning policy framework behind local authority planning for children. There is evidence that play can contribute to every one of the five Every Child Matters outcomes:

• Be healthy
• Staying safe
• Enjoying and achieving
• Making a positive contribution
• Enjoying economic well-being

Embedding the Play Strategy (Chapter 3) contains a detailed discussion on play’s contribution to Every Child Matters.

Thinking about the intended outcomes of your project – the benefits for children and the difference you will make – is a good opportunity to involve the community. It will also mean you will be able to form partnerships with other agencies working in your community who are trying to meet the same outcomes.

Tools for evaluating local play provision, developed by Play England for local authorities to assess their performance in providing for children’s play, can be used to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of your provision. These tools enable providers to assess:

• how much and how often children and young people play out in their local neighbourhood
• the access they have to a variety of suitable facilities and space
• the quality of those facilities and space
• how satisfied children and young people are with the range and quality of play facilities and spaces in their local neighbourhood.

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Tools and information

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Organisations