The EIU provides direct support to the Black Country LEP including responding to government consultations including the recent Industrial Strategy, briefing reports for Board members, intelligence reports for the LEP Board e.g. latest GVA and output gap analysis and Policy Away Days.
Some of the examples of what we do include:
Sectoral Analysis
We have utilised our extension evidence base and developed detailed dashboards for each of our 5 transformational and 5 enabling sectors to enable us to target our action to support economic growth. The dashboards include the scale of GVA, jobs and businesses for each sector and sub sectors and the comparison of the proportion of GVA and jobs to the national average - current and ambition levels. They also provide a list and spatial mapping of the top performing businesses in each sector with an analysis of financial records to establish GVA contribution, average GVA per employee, GVA growth rates, level of value added – high/medium/low and an overview of the ownership of these businesses. This ‘deep dive’ enables a greater understanding of the role of sectors and the variations that occur across and within sectors to enable the appropriate targeting of intervention in order to support growth.
Strategic Companies Barometer
Our Strategic Companies Barometer is an annual report which provides an in-depth analysis of the key companies in the Black Country driving our economic growth across our transformational sectors. For the full list of all our intelligence reports please click here.
Labour Market Intelligence
The Black Country Economic Intelligence Unit provides regular updates to the Employment & Skills Board via a dashboard on the performance of relevant programmes on education and skills to inform discussion and development of future projects and programmes which will facilitate achievement of the objectives of the Strategic Economic Plan.
The EIU also acts as a data expert on the Skills Funding Agency Data Cube on behalf of the four Black Country Local Authorities providing regular and timely support when needed and assisting organisations to understand the data in more detail. Furthermore, the EIU provides significant support to the Black Country Skills Factory on understanding the pre- and post-16 skills and education environment to achieve the objectives of the Careers and Enterprise Company and in supporting the High Value Manufacturing City Deal Programme.
As part of our work with the education sector we have developed town profiles, which allow schools to better understand their local labour market. These include data on deprivation, local employment and unemployment rates, town demographics and the strategic companies within their immediate localities. We also directly support schools by speaking to teachers, employers and students about the current and future labour market trends at events. The EIU supports the evaluation of Skills Factory projects such as Passport to Employment, while analysing and reporting on feedback from stakeholders.
Economic Assessments including Benefit Cost Analysis
The team is also skilled in the production and review of economic impact assessments. Following the principles set out in the HM Treasury Green Book guidance for economic appraisal and evaluation the team can assess the impact of interventions on the local economy. We have also developed a Benefit Cost Ratio model to enable prioritisation of the BC LEP growth deal interventions and calculate the net GVA impact of potential projects.