Design skills can help councils nurture local economic growth
Design is a key driver of economic growth.
Research has shown that businesses that invest £1 in design receive £20 in return on investment, and that people with design skills are 47 per cent more productive than the UK average.
But design is not just beneficial to businesses. It also creates value in the public sector, and there is a genuine appetite in local government to adopt strategic design skills.
At the beginning of 2022, the LGA commissioned the Design Council to deliver a design skills programme that supported local authorities in nurturing economic growth.
The programme saw five authority teams from across England receive support to apply design principles to live projects. This included: investigating how to engage younger people with jobs and skills; how to take a heritage-led approach to town centre regeneration; and how to develop innovation centres in response to the climate emergency.
Officers from East Hampshire District and Havant Borough Councils joined the programme to develop a job centre for 16 to 24-year-olds in a local area of deprivation called Leigh Park.
Taking a design-led approach enabled the authorities to develop valuable insights about their stakeholders and reframe their challenge. This involved exploring opportunities to tie the job centre with other planned works, including the redevelopment of the local reservoir.
“Insight and research enabled a focused project, with clear steps to the end goal,” said one officer.
Darlington Borough Council joined the programme to explore ways to unlock the town centre’s economic, social and cultural potential through strategic interventions, such as the introduction of a coordinated shopfront improvement scheme.
This included mapping existing assets – such as heritage sites and cultural venues – and integrating them into a mix that reflects the town’s history and supports the community’s future aspirations.
Strategic design enabled the team to explore these interventions in a considered and holistic way.
As one officer said: “The design-led process helps to define and consider challenges and outcomes more fully.”
Finally, Bolsover District Council and Exeter City Council joined the programme to explore opportunities to nurture innovation locally.
Bolsover wanted to develop a tech centre structured around green technologies, such as heat pumps, working in partnership with the local university.
According to a participating officer, the programme has enabled the council “to work up our business case for a skills academy that has attracted £500,000 of funding”.
Exeter City Council was looking to develop a ‘green growth’ innovation hub in partnership with Exeter University.
Participation in the programme enabled them to focus their thinking, and act with speed and purpose.
“Taking a design-led approach means you can do something at pace – be agile – without spending lots of money that you might regret later,” said one officer.
In conclusion, councils working on economic growth can look to incorporate design thinking to increase skills levels, build civic pride, and retain local talent. This, in turn, is beneficial to local communities.
But to ensure councils can support planetary goals, those efforts must be matched by investments in sustainable, regenerative practices.
Taking a triple bottom-line approach to levelling up – factoring in economic, social and environmental outcomes – can be a helpful way of framing the issue. Conceptualising levelling up in this way can help not only drive growth and wellbeing, but also support a sustainable future for all.