Benefits challenges torbay

The benefits & challenges of undertaking the LEA in-house

Suzie Burrow

www.torbaydevelopmentagency.co.uk

TDA – Who are we?

• Torbay Development Agency is Torbay’s economic development company and was established in 2010.

• Wholly owned by the Council but…• Formed as a public / private sector partnership

to deliver the regeneration and future sustainability of Torbay.

• Currently in the process of recruiting the board and chair.


What do we do?

• Responsibility for :• Physical Regeneration• Economic development and economic strategy• Property services (asset, estate & facility

management)

• As a key part of the development of the economic strategy TDA responsible for developing the LEA.


Why not commission consultants?

• A big project – we believe we would have struggled to get all the information from one commission.

• Time would still have been required to manage multiple commissions.

• We wouldn’t have been able to tailor the assessment around our needs as easily.


Why do the LEA in-house?

• Timely – the refresh of our economic strategy was also due and a shared evidence base made sense.

• Team development – the LEA has given the opportunity to improve and develop skills in new areas.

• Skills and knowledge also remain in-house and can be used to our advantage on other projects.

• Great way to get to know the area.


Challenges

• Too much information – what really is valuable to the development of local policy and identification of appropriate actions.

• Where to get data from – made much easier by the SW Observatory support and core indicators.

• Interpreting data sets and presenting the information in a clear, accessible way.

• Keeping the assessment up to date.


Benefits

• Ability to take part in regional projects and purchases like the Functional Economic Market Area data.

• Flexibility of project, adding more data as and when it becomes available.

• Speed – we have been able to tackle the areas which contain information needed for other projects first and not going through the commissioning process has saved time.

• Ease of updating – we wrote it with refreshing in mind.

• Team skills – improved knowledge puts us in a better place to analyse and advise partners.


Risks

• Detail – by doing the whole LEA in house we risked not including enough detail or missing key data sets.

• Not having previous experience and creating a document that is not comparable to others on the region.

• Both averted by working with the Observatory.


Results

• A detailed, place orientated document following the government guidance but concentrating on the key areas for Torbay.

• A comprehensive evidence base which feeds into our economic strategy and gives us an up to date set of statistics to work from.

• Compliments Local Development Framework and Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.


Next Steps

• FEMA information and new growth forecasts currently being incorporated.

• LEA expected to go out as an interim assessment for consultation shortly afterwards.

• To be adopted by the Strategic Partnership.• Final document to be released in the late

Autumn.

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Benefits challenges torbay