Recession guidance

• 'How to' guides
• Driving economic prosperity: diagnostic tool
• Recession-proof your website
• Local responses to the economic downturn in the North West
• No council of despair
• Brief guide to the recession
• Recession checklist
• Local Partnerships recession FAQs
• Doing more with less

'How to' guides: tackling worklessness

We are  working closely with experts in the field and with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Communities and Local Government to develop a series of ‘How to’ guides. These are intended to help practitioners who have a role in tackling worklessness and meeting local employment outcomes.

These recession-focused guides contain practical advice and tips for action and support and will highlight good practice.

The list below contains links to the individual guides.

The guides focus on:

1. Responding to redundancy (PDF, 16 pages, 228KB)
2. Developing a healthy workforce (PDF, 12 pages, 191KB)
3. Commissioning employment and skills services in partnership (PDF, 12 pages, 178KB)
4. Developing a strategy to tackle worklessness (PDF, 16 pages, 226KB)
5. Targeting and outreach work with the voluntary and community sector (PDF, 12 pages, 189KB)
6. Unlocking community assets to deliver on worklessness (PDF, 12 pages, 215KB)
7. Supporting jobs, supporting business (PDF, 16 pages, 198KB)
8. Engaging business to create healthier and wealthier communities (PDF, 12 pages, 166KB)
9. Capturing the potential of the third sector (PDF, 12 pages, 216KB)
10. Helping people stay in work (PDF, 16 pages, 241KB)
11. Improving employment outcomes for ethnic minorities (PDF, 16 pages, 227KB)
12. Using the public sector (PDF, 16 pages, 208KB)

Your council’s regulatory services in a recession - a resource guide

Local Government Regulation (formerly LACORS) has produced a resource guide that highlights some of the most useful resources available to council regulatory services. The aim is to help ensure that councils and leaders are able to meet the leadership challenges posed by the tightening financial climate.

Your council’s regulatory services in a recession - a resource guide - on the LG Regulation website.

Driving economic prosperity: diagnostic tool

This diagnostic is designed to help councils fulfil their enhanced role in place shaping and promoting economic prosperity. It provides a framework and a set of diagnostic questions for use in self-assessment or peer review. It is intended to identify gaps in knowledge or interventions, and help councils improve their local economy. It provides questions to help direct inquiries or interventions, and gives case studies from other councils tackling the issues.

Driving Economic Prosperity: Diagnostic tool (PDF, 133 pages, 1.9MB large file)

This diagnostic tool has been developed in consultation with local authorities with the support of a broad stakeholder steering group. Economic development and regeneration officers throughout the country participated in focus group discussions to develop and refine it. The diagnostic will be piloted and updated as required.

Local Government Improvement and Development (formerly the IDeA) welcomes comments and ideas on the diagnostic, including ways in which it has been beneficial. Please join the Raising Economic Prosperity Community of Practice (CoP) to discuss your experiences.

Raising Economic Prosperity Community of Practice

Local Government Improvement and Development (formerly the IDeA) intends to develop the diagnostic into an electronic self-assessment tool as well as offering a peer review based on the tool. If you would like to discuss this, please email Kamal Panchal, Programme Manager:

kamal.panchal@local.gov.uk

Recession-proof your website

At this time of uncertainty and acute financial and economic pressure, councils must ensure that key information and essential resources reach their residents and businesses, and continue to reach them throughout the downturn. Effective signposting of support – advice, guidance, financial and other – could help employers, employees and residents survive these times of difficulty. This good practice resource is designed to help local authorities and their partners refresh their websites in response to the challenging economic climate.

Recession-proof Your Website (PDF, 12 pages, 533KB)

Local responses to the economic downturn in the North West

The North West Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (NWIEP), Government Office North West, 4NW and the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA) have come together to produce guidance and support to local authorities that want to develop effective responses to the recession.

This briefing aims to provide an overview of the main challenges that the recession poses for local authorities and their partners in the northwest. It explores the short and longer-term responses which may be appropriate, together with case studies which show how local authorities are currently responding to the recession.

Local responses to the economic downturn – on the North West Improvement and Efficiency Partnership website.

No council of despair

'No Council of Despair: Positive local leadership in a recession' is a resource for local councils, councillors and officers, to support them to develop a coherent response to the local impact of the recession.

No Council of Despair (PDF, 65 pages, 1.1MB large file)

It emphasises the value of a strategic response that keeps the long-term vision and ambition of a council in view. It is important that councils retain, or generate, the capacity to refresh their long-term vision and that they plan their short- and medium-term response to the recession within that framework.

Brief guide to the recession

Prior to 'No Council of Despair', the IDeA (now Local Government Improvement and Development) produced two other documents. One of them, 'A Brief Guide to the Recession', is intended to provide some background and contextual information to help councils consider the impact of the recession on their area and formulate their response to it. The guide:

• summarises the debate about the causes of the recession
• draws on recent commentary and analysis of the current position
• summarises work on the likely trends over the next two years.

Brief Guide to the Recession (PDF, 5 pages, 501KB)

Recession checklist

The other, a checklist, 'Recession: The local impact', is designed to enable councils to consider all the implications of the recession and their scope for action and to help them generate the imaginative and innovative thinking that is necessary to deal with these unique circumstances.

Recession checklist (PDF, 5 pages, 536KB)

Local Partnerships recession FAQs

As the credit crunch intensifies, greater challenges have evolved in all sectors of the economy that rely on private finance, including councils with public private partnerships (PPP) and private finance initiative (PFI) projects in development and procurement. The credit crunch is resulting in some delays to projects, higher borrowing costs, and an inability to syndicate debt between banks.

Local Partnerships has produced a listing of frequently-asked questions (FAQ) on the credit crunch.

Local Partnerships FAQs about the credit crunch – on the Local Partnerships website.

Doing more with less

The economic slowdown has left town halls having to find more than £1 billion of savings over the next three years to safeguard vital local services and keep council tax down.

New analysis shows that spiralling inflation has reduced the value of the funding that councils receive from central government and through council tax. In real terms, the funding awarded to councils in last year’s comprehensive spending review (CSR) is now worth almost £500 million a year less than originally intended.

Local government has already made significant efficiency savings, but will increasingly have to do more with less.

The Improvement Network website contains a Value for Money resource with case studies and guidance.

Value for Money – on the Improvement Network website.

Page published April 2009.