An Advisory Panel of three distinguished academics was created to draft the brief and to advise the consultants on any technicalities of the evaluation process. A Steering Committee of officials and the iSLP Project Coordinator facilitated access to information for the consultants.

The resulting report was a substantial document containing a "baseline analysis" of the project and its history and an evaluation of achievements against the iSLP Principles. As a conclusion a number of guidelines were offered.

The evaluation was substantially favourable, but included the following negative remarks:

• Poor integration between the construction and operating phases of some community facilities. This related to a local authority enthusiastically building community halls and libraries without making the necessary plans and financial provision for their operation.
• A greater flexibility of technical standards of infrastructure would have been preferable. Both the Province and the City have set high standards with a view to containing maintenance costs.
• Little use of multi-purpose facilities and spaces. The iSLP has shown little success in persuading agencies to create, as a joint venture, multi-use premises. Almost all of the community facilities in the iSLP are for a single use.
• Little use of natural areas in the urban environment. A significant nature reserve is planned within the iSLP project area, but differences of opinion between the various authorities regarding its use have hindered its development.
• Minimal progress in the upgrading and management of informal settlements. This is a local authority function that has not been performed because of continuous changes in the structure of local authorities in the area, associated with a lack of capacity to deal with the politics and management of informal settlement upgrading.

The guidelines offered related primarily to the need to once again re-position the iSLP in the context of local government restructuring - viz: the establishment of a monolithic "unicity" in December 2000.

The report was delivered to the national and provincial housing departments and the local authorities that have jurisdiction within the iSLP project area.

Some important lessons were learned from this evaluation exercise:

• If a Business Plan is to specify that an evaluation is to be done it must state precisely what is to be evaluated, and that there be confidence that the subject can be effectively be evaluated. It would be preferable to accurately evaluate a confined range of topics that to attempt a "broad brush" evaluation, especially of such a big project.
• The evaluating agency must contain people who are not only qualified to evaluate the subjects, but whose experience, opinion and guidance in that field are likely to be valued and respected.