Fiona Ellis

Director 

Fiona Ellis has worked in consultancy for over 15 years, delivering services to the public and third sectors in the fields of regeneration, young people, employability and arts and culture. 

Fiona established Arrivo Consulting Limited to deliver high quality research and evaluation. Fiona has extensive experience of research, evaluation and review services, and has been the lead consultant on major evaluation commissions including the evaluations of:

• Creative Scotland programmes (Evaluation of the Creative Identities Programme and the evaluation of Creative Futures, a programme of arts residencies) 
• Inspiring Scotland
• The Partnership Drugs Initiative for the Scottish Government and Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, (providing services for young people at risk of alcohol and drugs)

Fiona has a solid track record in the development of evaluation frameworks and in the development of tools to identify and evidence outcomes. She has extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative techniques (surveys, interviews, focus groups and case studies to evidence outcomes) and has provided support to assist organisations to embed evaluation tools into their processes (self-evaluation).

Fiona also has extensive experience in the development of the third sector and has carried out research and evaluations of voluntary sector infrastructure and of volunteering programmes. These include:

• Mapping of the Organisational Development Capacity of the CVS network in Scotland (Client: SCVO). This work underpinned the development of the ‘Developing Organisations’ strand of the BIG LOTTERY funded SVA programme.
• A longitudinal study on the impact of the SVA programme – this study explores the impact of the SVA programme on 4 CVSs over a period of 3 years.
• Evaluation of the Volunteering Options Programme for Volunteer Development Scotland 
• Evaluation of ‘Gateway to Growth’ a business development programme aimed at supporting the growth of social enterprises in Lanarkshire.

Fiona has been an economic development consultant since 1999. She has extensive experience in regeneration gained within local authorities, Local Enterprise Companies, and third sector economic development agencies. Her experience ranges from strategic planning and policy development to project development and delivery. 

Fiona has significant experience of working with a wide range of organisations to support them to ‘position’ themselves within the ever changing policy and funding environment. Funders no longer wish to fund ‘activities’ but want to know what ‘outcomes’ their funding can deliver. Local and national government want to know how their partner agencies are contributing to the achievement of local and national policy objectives. 

 

 

She also has extensive knowledge of good practice in work with young people. She has developed and evaluated a number of programmes which aim to engage young people in different contexts and through a range of engagement mechanisms. She has evaluated a number of in-school programmes which aim to engage young people at risk of dropping out, programmes delivered by the arts sector and the youth work sector, and employability programmes aimed at engaging those furthest from the labour market and moving them towards education, training and employment.