Agenda item

The Chairman invited Susan Attard, Head of Productivity, to introduce the update.

Susan reported that the LGA’s grant determination letter from MHCLG included providing two key support programmes – the Economic Growth Advisers’ Programme and an Economic Resilience Programme. Based on feedback from last year’s programme and from the regional teams, 9 out of the target of 10 councils had already been selected to benefit from working with the Economic Growth Advisers.

Susan then explained how the LGA was working to support individual councillors, both through the Economic Growth Leadership Essentials course and through developing a new e-learning module.

Finally, Susan spoke about the LGA’s work to share best practice and urged members to contact officers if they had any projects or initiatives from their councils that could be used as case studies.

Members comments and questions:

·       Members were keen to emphasise how this work supported the Government’s agenda for both building back post-covid and also for ‘levelling up’, and that this should, therefore, be a strong focus for the LGA’s support offer.

·       Members were also keen that the LGA’s work was joined up with the work of groups such as Core Cities, in order to make best use of resources.

Decision:

·       Improvement & Innovation Board noted the update and endorsed the LGA’s support offer for 2021-22.