Strengthening local economies

Strengthening local economies

Since the middle of 2008, the UK has been hit by the worst worldwide recession since the 1930s.  No part of the country is immune from this downturn – and each of the Yorkshire Cities has been affected in differing ways.

The main aim of our work at this difficult time is to do all that we can to assist our members to emerge successfully from the recession.  We have therefore embarked on a programme of original research that will be of real practical help to local authorities in Yorkshire and beyond.

There are four strands to this programme.

Prospects for manufacturing

The manufacturing sector employs over 130,000 people across the Leeds City Region, and is responsible for the majority of our exports. It is more important to our local economies than in most other parts of the country. The government is keen to rebalance the economy to support industry, especially 'advanced manufacturing' sectors. 

Yorkshire Cities will commission a research project in Spring 2012 to look at the prospects for advanced and leading edge manufacturing companies in our areas.  We aim to identify growth opportunities to increase exports or to deepen local supply chains; to examine any barriers to progress; and to set out clear policy recommendations to councils, LEPs and other partners to ensure that Yorkshire Cities maximise the opportunities for their areas.

The project is due for completion before the end of 2012.

Green jobs

The need to reduce carbon emissions in all aspects of our lives - at work, home and leisure - will create a wide range of job opportunities in all parts of the country and for people of all skill levels. If local authorities can spot the types of work that are most likely to provide them with jobs growth, and can then go on to identify the skills needed to fill these jobs, we can go some way to helping each area to emerge successfully from the downturn.

In this context, Yorkshire Cities commissioned a major project, The Prospects for Green Jobs to 2020, to provide robust evidence on the scale of the green economy across Yorkshire & Humber and the prospects for job creation over the coming decade. The Final Report - available to download on the right hand side of this page - also offers detailed policy and action recommendations to help councils, LEPs and other bodies to maximise the job creation potential offered by the low carbon economy.

As well as the Final Report, an Executive Summary and a suite of profiles for city regions and local authority areas are also available. For more information on this important piece of research please visit the Green Jobs page of the website.

Economic resilience

In April 2009, we pioneered a new approach - the Index of Economic Resilience - to provide a toolkit to enable areas to identify their economic strengths and work to improve resilience in the future. The research has been carried out by the consultants ekosgen.

The Index is based on over 30 separate measures, and assesses resilience on six broad headings (or 'domains'):  economic structure, enterprise, skilled workforce, economic inclusion, place & population and infrastructure & connectivity. 

The latest update of this research has now been published.   The Index of Economic Resilience 2011 is based on the latest available data, and also benefits from a thorough revision of the basis of the Index to take account of current economic circumstances and to adopt a more forward-looking approach to the measures of resilience. 

The main final report is available to download from the right hand side of this page, as well as the summary report for the Leeds City Region LEP Area. 

There are also Area Summary reports available on this page for each of the Yorkshire Cities member authorities:  Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield and York. 

All the 2009 suite of reports and the 2010 update are also available to download from the Research Library. 

Tackling unemployment

In Summer 2010, Yorkshire Cities published a piece of work to look at the policies implemented by local authorities to tackle the rise in unemployment that has taken place since the start of the current recession.

It also provided a toolkit for our members that highlights good practice and allows them - as well as any other organisations involved in delivering labour market interventions - to check that they are pursuing the most appropriate policies for the particular problems in their own locality.

The final report - plus the toolkit and a series of 'data dashboards' for each local authority - are available to download via the link on the right hand side of this page.