Government started consultation on its industrial strategy green paper, Invest 2035,in October 2024. In it, Local Growth Plans are mentioned as ambitious plans to ‘grow their sectoral clusters and improve the local business environment’.
Further guidance on Local Growth Plans has not yet been published, but places will be working off existing strategies – Local Industrial Strategies, Covid19 economic recovery plans, inclusive growth plans, and others.
Regardless of the starting point, use of evidence is essential when developing or renewing a local economic strategy.
We have pulled together existing resources to help places think through their local economy and identify what to include in a local economic strategy.
This page is not set in stone, and we will continue to work with local and central government to further develop resources.
Step one: Where are you now?
Understanding the state of the local economy
Where are you starting from? Getting an understanding of the local economy requires looking at a range of evidence, using useful comparators, understanding trends over time, and getting a sense of differences within the area. Start with GVA, productivity and the labour market, and then look at the drivers of productivity. A focus on sectors should still reflect how sector breakdown interacts with the labour market, productivity, innovation, and skills.
A guide to thinking about the data is Using data for local economic policy.
We also have a training course Understanding data on local economic growth that we run throughout the year.
Step two: Where do you want to go?
Choosing realistic aims
Once there is an understanding of the local context, the next step is to set out ambitions based on the evidence. For example, is there a need to increase skills in the labour market? If looking at skills, is the problem graduate retention, housing or transport to widen the labour pool, or supporting people into employment through basic skills and apprenticeships?
More guidance can be found in Developing an effective local industrial strategy.
An important part of choosing realistic aims is to understand what scale of change is possible. For an overview of how displacement, deadweight, and leakage might affect the impact of interventions, see our series Understanding core concepts in economic growth.
Step three: How are you going to get there?
Selecting effective interventions
We recommend using logic models as a method to make sure there is a clear link between the interventions and the outcomes sought. We have training Making use of logic models as well as a guide Using logic models.
For overviews of what we know about what works for economic impact, view our evidence resources. We have reviews, toolkits and briefings that cover everything from apprenticeships to transport, and from in-work management training to public procurement.
External resources:
These external resources have good ideas on approaching local growth plans.
- As a starting point on data, the new ONS local indicators allows for quick comparison with automated charts on a range of indicators.
- The LGA published a range of resources on Local Industrial Strategies to support local government, including an online learning programme.
- Paul Swinney from Centre for Cities highlighted key points to consider when developing Local Growth Plans back in July.
- For a longer read, the Resolution Foundation reports Tale of Two Cities released in two parts (one and two) gives an excellent example of how to implement steps 1 and 2 for two of our biggest cities.
