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Remember the new duty to develop local economic assessments? The IDeA has been working with the 17 pioneer councils which developed the guidance to gauge their progress. Sara Williams gives some feedback As single-tier councils get to grips with their new responsibility to develop local economic assessments, a number of them have identified a common set of opportunities and challenges. The IDeA went back to the 17 councils which helped develop the sector-led guidance on ‘How to do a local economic assessment' to gauge their progress and get a better feel for the support that councils may need in general. While all of them are making good progress, they are keen to maximise the impact and value of their assessments. This means agreeing and raising awareness of the local economic assessment (LEA), getting the geography right, planning ahead and timing the assessment with other strategies. The early adopters feel strongly that the process of producing a local economic assessment is as useful as the end product itself. However, the message to other councils is not to underestimate the resources and capacity required to develop the assessment. Other emerging issues include: positioning the assessment – virtually all local authority services have an interest and influence into the local economy, so it's important that councils think carefully about where the assessment is led from, in order to ensure progress and influence data and evidence collection – just how much data is needed and its breadth is a significant challenge structures and partnerships – reconciling that different structures exist within councils and neighbouring authorities and stakeholders, all of which have an interest in the delivery of an LEA which accurately represents the local economy engagement – councils have a wide range of partners, far wider than those which can manageably contribute to delivery. Engaging with partners at the right time – usually early on – on the right basis, and in the appropriate manner, will be important if councils are to influence their future plans and engage them in the process funding – while there has been additional government funding made available to councils to undertake the LEA, each council has to make its own decision about what resources to make available for this activity. The report finds that overall authorities are progressing well, and feel that their involvement in developing the IDeA's ‘How to' guidance has enabled them to be ahead of the game. In order to develop a ‘story of place', authorities have engaged with a good range of stakeholders and, the report says, are ‘taking this opportunity to develop a core evidence base that will underpin the full range of strategies, including, in some cases, those of partners'. One of the key things councils should look for is around engaging with stakeholders. Talking to other public sector organisations, the business sector and neighbouring local authorities up front, saying, ‘This is what we're going to do and this is the evidence base we're going to use' enables those partners to understand the purpose of LEA, and get involved or even offer a better set of data to use. All of this helps in developing partnership working. The IDeA's advice is that councils should have started work on their assessments now, with the aim of having a draft in place by the autumn, not only to meet next April's statutory deadline, but so that they can influence business and service plans, and future strategies. Sara Williams is IDeA strategic adviser Case study: Croydon case study Croydon has been sharing its work on Local Economic Assessment through IDeA's online community of practice at www.communities.idea.gov.uk Its big potential for economic development makes it an ideal area to watch. Beyond the sector-led guidance, the IDeA has continued to work with councils, allowing ‘space' for networking through its LEA online community of practice. This active community has more than 700 practitioners on board. ‘Croydon is a big local authority for economic development and economic partnerships, and we were keen to share,' says the council's Wayne Shand. ‘We're a large local authority with complex geography.' The authority has a ‘mixed set of economic geographies' and one of the main issues it has faced – which is reflected in the ‘emerging issues' identified by other councils – is where the local economic assessment fits in with all the other plans, strategies and datasets which touch on local economic issues. ‘The issue for us is going through the process of how we look at economic assessments within all the other things we have to do,' says Mr Shand. ‘I suppose the thing we've learned so far is that we need to find a way to locate the LEA within the complex processes that are there. It's just really about understanding what the key drivers and main factors of the local economy are, and then identifying points of leverage to promote growth and economic stability." For example, making sure officers working on the LEA are talking to those working on the local development framework, ‘so your environment is attractive to a business which might want to invest, promoting the borough as an accessible place for business.' He adds: ‘It's a sort of mind map. If you have an objective or an issue, work outwards. What does the council do? What partners are involved?' ‘Start with an initial understanding about your economy,' he suggests. ‘Look at what it does now and what you want it to do in the future. Where do you want it to grow, where do you want to control growth, and so on. ‘We're all grappling with the same sort of issues,' he adds. ‘There are several places which are looking at a sub-regional level as well – so maintain consistency of partnerships with other boroughs around, as you need to work with the people around you." Croydon aims to do its data gathering exercise over the summer, and has a document produced around October.

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What now for local economic assessments?

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