The Improvement Service provides a secretariat function for the Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development (SLAED) group, via the Project Manager, Economic Outcomes Programme.
We also host the Employability Partnership Manager who supports the SLAED People (Employability) Group, facilitates sharing of good practice, co-ordinates a programme of development webinars to help upskill employability leads and other frontline staff, and has been working alongside other IS projects in developing a whole systems approach to tackling child poverty through various networks.
We work in partnership with Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland to promote a wellbeing economy and support engagement between SLAED and these national bodies on topics such as community wealth building. This is a progressive approach to economic development that aims to enable retention of wealth and opportunities within an area for the benefit of local communities.
As part of the SLAED secretariat function, the IS publishes the SLAED Indicators Framework on an annual basis. This provides consistent data and evidence on what councils throughout Scotland are delivering as local economic development organisations. The link to the most recent report can be found in the menu on the left of this webpage.
In the past, via the Economic Outcomes Programme, the IS has produced a number of useful reports and toolkits for local authorities and partners. These include economic footprint reports which look beyond traditional economic development interventions and examine opportunities for enhancing impact via ‘levers’ that do not feature explicitly in economic development strategies. The programme also produced an Improvement Guide with a practical toolkit to encourage councils to critically review their activities and identify areas for improvement. These can be found via the links in the menu on the left of this webpage.