Megan Streb from the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth provides a series of recommendations for local authorities when developing Local Growth Plans.
This blog was first posted on the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth website in September 2024. What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth are part of the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub Project Board.
Local authorities (LA) are waiting to hear more from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) about Local Growth Plans. What will they include? Will they only focus on sectors, or will they take a broader look at the components of growth? Will they only be for devolved areas, or will the geographies mirror upper-tier LAs, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), travel-to-work areas, or another set of boundaries?
Of course, most places won’t be starting from scratch.
To better understand what LAs will be building on, we reviewed 24 economic strategies from upper-tier LAs and LEPs across England. We focused on how well they used insights from local evidence.
For places looking to improve their evidence base before developing a new or updated growth strategy, here are a few recommendations.
Use comparisons with other places, but choose them with care
In training, we often pose the question “Is that a big number?” – comparisons help us to make sense of numbers. But bad comparisons can be misleading. For example, for a city in a largely rural region, a comparison to the region’s average may suggest that the city is overperforming.
Most strategies we reviewed compared to the UK or England average, which can be helpful to tell a story about ‘narrowing the gap’. Very few, however, compared themselves to places like them, e.g., university cities compared to university cities or coastal communities to other coastal communities. This kind of comparison can help both to gauge performance and to help communicate what that number means to decision-makers.
Consider different datasets side-by-side
Often, comparing different data can help explore an issue. For example, how does productivity compare to the weekly wages of residents? This can help unpick whether residents are benefitting from more productive jobs. In some cases, businesses may be reliant on skilled in-commuters. Comparing the weekly wages of workers to those of residents would also help to shed light on this.
Most strategies looked at datasets individually, which makes it harder to think about how different elements of the economy interact.
Delve into differences within your area
What do skill levels look like on a map? Is there a gender gap on economic inactivity rates? Are clusters of productivity well connected to transport? Being able to understand differences within the area helps to target interventions effectively. ONS now has an increasing amount of data available at smaller geographies.
The best strategies we reviewed showed a good understanding of particular issues and made clear links to interventions focused on particular neighbourhoods or sectors.
Avoid standalone projects
Innovation and regeneration stood out as policy areas with stated goals and projects in the documents, but little evidence explaining why those interventions were needed. Innovation, for example, is an important driver of productivity, but the interventions could be around graduate retention rather than new lab space. Explaining insights from local data and wider research can ensure projects are built on a solid foundation of evidence.
Get started now
We’re advocates of using evidence for policymaking. That requires places to understand their local economy in advance of new funding announcements or guidance for Local Growth Plans.
For some suggestions of evidence that may be useful, check out our new webpage on Local Growth Plans. We also offer training on Understanding data on local economic growth with two dates this autumn.
This blog was written by Megan Streb, Head of Outreach at the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.