Insights
Last week I was appointed to the Board of the Institute of Economic Development (IED). With 1500 members, two-thirds of which are from local authorities, I’m keen to use it as an opportunity to hear from and support economic development officers and directors.
Working in local authority economic development teams is a tough job—it involves a wide range of skills and a shrinking number of colleagues. In a small team, it means moving between delivery, strategy development, bid writing, business support, and more.
Since I started at What Works Growth almost three years ago, we’ve changed how we engage with local authorities. We’ve continued some things, such as our short webinars that walk through the evidence of ‘what works’ on a range of policy areas. We’ve also adapted other resources, like putting the ‘things to consider’ at the front of our evidence briefings, or breaking our ‘how to evaluate’ training into a range of shorter courses. We’ve also developed new support, such as training to build understanding of different kinds of evidence and data. For those with more capacity to carry out robust impact evaluation, we started an evaluation network for Mayoral Combined Authorities.
All these changes are about trying to make life just a little bit easier for those working in local economic development. But we still have more to do to make sure we meet places where they are so we can help as many people as possible.
For those without analysts or economists in the team, that means easy to understand guidance on data and economic thinking. For those pressed for time, it means short training that feels practical and able to take back into the day-to-day work. For those with very little budget for training, I’m happy to say that all our support is free, and counts towards the IED continued professional development hours.
I’m excited to take this same approach, to meet places where they are, into the role on the board at IED and to use it as an opportunity to deepen my understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing local authority economic development teams. As we await new announcements on local government reform and the English Devolution Bill, it feels even more important.
