Intelligence Hub Blog: Demonstrating the Social and Economic Value of Sistema Scotland’s Big Noise Programme

The Glasgow City Region Intelligence Hub recently contributed to an evaluation of Sistema Scotland’s Big Noise programme, helping to assess its social and economic impact on participants, families and wider communities.

Evaluating the impact of a complex, multi-site social intervention such as Sistema Scotland’s Big Noise programme is challenging, but important.

Based on the Venezuelan El Sistema model, Big Noise aims to use immersion in an intensive, long-term symphony orchestra programme to achieve a wide range of social and economic outcomes at a range of levels: for the children and young people taking part, for their families, and for the wider community across its six sites.

Glasgow City Region’s Intelligence Hub contributed to Glasgow Centre for Population Health’s (GCPH) latest evaluation of the programme, Trust the Process: Big Noise impact on participants, families and their wider communities (2026).

The economic evaluation provided clear support for the continued funding of Big Noise, demonstrating its value not just for those involved but for wider society.

Using a cost-benefit analysis methodology produced by the Hub and underpinned by HM Treasury Green Book guidance, we estimated that, over ten years, one Big Noise site – Govanhill in Glasgow – returns:

• £3.25 of benefit to Glasgow for every £1 spent
• £3.94 of benefit to the wider Glasgow City Region for every £1 spent
• £5.99 of benefit for Scotland for every £1 spent.

This economic impact reflects the real differences which such programmes make in people’s lives through the pathways evidenced by the evaluation’s systems mapping undertaken by colleagues at University of Strathclyde.

In producing an estimate of economic benefit – a figure keenly sought by those providing and seeking funding for such projects – the aim is not to pit Big Noise against other smaller-scale, community-rooted interventions who may not have the same access to funding, tools for evaluation, and to media and government. We argue instead that these figures give further credence to the value of financial support for well-run projects targeting social change through robust, longitudinal, programmes which place the formation of trusting relationships at their heart.

Finn Clasen represented the Intelligence Hub on a panel at the evaluation launch in Govanhill in June 2026, alongside the other evaluators, and the Chief Executive of Sistema Scotland. There was widespread praise for the approach taken by the Hub among the other evaluators and those in attendance, with interest in the methodological approach and its wider applicability.

More information on this methodological approach, and on the wider evaluation, can be found in the summary report.