Notes from the Economic Development Benchmarking Session – 13th September 2021
On the 13th September, CEDOs hosted a virtual event to explore how Local Authorities benchmark the performance or their local economies and of their Economic Development services. A copy of the slides from the outline presentation are available here.
Below are the key points from the session:
- Most Authorities draw from NOMIS data for their performance and benchmarking – acknowledging the limitations in terms of perishability of data (especially since COVID-19).
- Many Local Authorities benchmarked performance of projects/provision based on whichever funding body was picking up the costs (such as EU funds)
- Benchmarking what other Authorities invest in Economic Development, the functions and structures of their teams and what their key areas of focus are was very difficult to undertake.
- Most Local Authorities benchmark against their near neighbours – although often the direction and rate of economic change is largely similar so it was recognised it is often not valuable as a benchmark.
- Authorities faced a major issue in developing evidence and a narrative around counterfactuals and demonstrating the impact of projects and services
- Many Upper Tier Authorities have largely ‘strategy’ led provision which limits the performance data that can be used and often means there are few interventions that are within the Authority’s gift to change economic indicators
- Some Authorities, acknowledging the variations in their local economies – report or reflect heavily on sub-county areas within their economic benchmarking as local economies are very different
- Lincolnshire County Council operate an economic ‘dashboard’ system to demonstrate performance.
- Warwickshire County Council utilise 9 headline economic indicators to demonstrate performance.