Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Secondment

The purpose of this secondment was to oversee and support the development of research, intelligence and evaluation activity within the now defunct Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership.

The secondment role was to provide capacity and leadership to improve the use of data and intelligence to inform policy design and programme management of Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership funded activity. The secondment also involved input in the use of evaluation techniques to assess the impact of the programmes, projects and GBSLEP Investment.

The timescale for this project is from April 2021 to March 2022 with an extension of secondment from April 2022 to March 2023.

WMREDI

Research Theme 2

GBSLEP

Objectives

Improve the capture and use of statistical information, management data and soft intelligence gathering on sector performance.
Improve GBSLEP data gathering and analysis and reporting of economic assessments to the Board and its sub groups.
Support use of LMI, placed based and business data in the design and delivery of LEP interventions, including Growth Hub customer information used for intelligence.
Make more use of and embed economic research being generated by University partners (most significantly WM REDI and Aston University) and local authorities (Birmingham City Council and Solihull MBC Observatory) into the policy making and decisions of GBSLEP.
Provide a practical resource to lead data analysis, reporting, visualisations etc to feed into corporate and Board decision making.
Contribute to a stronger culture of evidence-based decision making within GBSLEP.
Strengthen data sharing and joint research activity with neighbouring LEPs the WMCA and key local authority partners in the GBSLEP area.
Provide a link and GBS input into various research networks (WM DREAM; Midlands Engine; LEP network etc)

The Team

When the project started the secondment was split between Dr Juliane Schwarz (0.8 FTE) and Alice Pugh (0.2 FTE).

Dr Juliane Schwarz led on the development of an evaluation and monitoring framework for GBSLEP.

Alice Pugh led on data monitoring and visualisation, data analysis, and economic analysis. When the original secondment finished in March 2022, the secondment was extended, and Alice Pugh continues the secondment at GBSLEP for 1 day a week (0.2 FTE) till March 2023.

Alice Pugh will be continuing to help develop data monitoring and visualisation, data analysis, and economic analysis, to help policy makers make better informed decisions.

The Dr Juliane Schwarz and Alice Pugh worked with a key team at the GBSLEP to develop a Monitor and Evaluation framework for the LEP, this team was:

Henriette Breukelaar- Chief Executive GBSLEP
Krystalla Michaels- Head of PMO
Avril Draper- Programme Support Officer
Saboor Arif- Project Champion

Information for Policy Makers

This secondment has helped to facilitate relationships between local policy makers and researchers. Helping to integrate research into policy making decisions within local institutions. Researchers, whilst at GBSLEP have helped to develop an evaluation and monitoring framework, to help monitor and evaluate the impact of projects and programmes. They have also facilitated the greater use of place-based economic analysis and research, to better understand local challenges and opportunities that face the area. This has helped to improve the culture of evidence-based decision making, particularly strategic and economic policy making decisions.