Local Futures works with regional and local organisations across Britain. We help them to understand current conditions, anticipate future change, and work with them to develop long-term visions and strategies. These range from economic development and regeneration strategies, through to skills and sustainable community strategies.
While our approach is underpinned by empirical research and hard evidence, through workshop programmes we aim to engage local stakeholders and to shape strategies that are inclusive, sustainable and ‘joined-up’.
While our approach is flexible, it ideally involves six interrelated stages of work:
- understanding current conditions
- future drivers of change
- scenarios for the future
- vision for the future
- strategy and action plan
- monitoring and evaluation
Understanding current conditions:
This generally involves a Local Futures Audit and associated research to ensure a comprehensive understanding of current conditions - economic, social, environmental. The analysis is undertaken at different spatial levels, on one hand assessing the conditions of a city or county, set within a regional or national context, and on the other assessing conditions 'within' an area, at a ward or neighbourhood level. We present our findings at workshops and conferences ensuring a shared understanding of conditions, working with participants to highlight strengths, weaknesses and current policy challenges.
Future drivers of change:
Here we assess the trends/drivers that are likely to impact on change in the future. Our findings are presented in reports and 'future drivers of change' workshops. We look at a range of trends and forecasts that we believe will have implications for regions and localities. The findings are presented at workshops, with participants highlighting opportunities, threats and future policy challenges. We consider the importance and uncertainty of drivers, and assess their potential impact on current conditions (hence the robustness of existing strategies).
Scenarios for the future:
While we can't foresee the future, we believe by exploring the future we can better inform present decisions. For this reason, Local Futures encourages the use of scenario planning, as a means of anticipating possible alternative futures. Our approach is workshop based and draws on our Future Drivers of Change and other insights to develop bespoke scenarios for an area. To assist in this process we have developed four generic scenarios for the future of Britain. The scenarios are designed to provide compelling alternative views of the future that can be applied locally, highlighting local implications and impacts. Through 'backcasting' and other exercises, they can also be used to assess the impact on existing conditions and the robustness of current strategic thinking.
Vision for the future:
A vision should not restate goals and objectives, but should reflect desired outcomes. While it should be rooted in the future, it should also be grounded in present challenges. Ideally, it should reflect balanced progress towards economic, social and environmental sustainability. It should also be based on partnership in the widest sense and should be owned by a range of stakeholders. The Local Futures approach to draws on our wide experience in this field. It is largely workshop-based and aims to generate visions that are concise, compelling and specific to a particular area.
Strategy and action plan:
Having agreed a long-term vision we then work with stakeholders to agree overarching aims and objectives for the strategy - economic, social, environmental. We work with them to agree priorities for action and to identify 'win-win' propositions. Through 'policy mapping' we relate existing programmes and interventions into the wider aims of the strategy. Throughout this stage of work we seek to demonstrate the cross-cutting nature of interventions, highlighting the genuine value added of partnership working.
Monitoring and evaluation:
Our Local Futures Audit reports themselves provide a useful monitoring framework for many users. Having agreed aims, objectives and action plans we advise clients on the indicators and targets to be used in monitoring the progress of strategies. Through our Local Knowledge database we hold and maintain over 1,000 national indicators and can advise clients on availale sources that can be used to monitor the outcomes and impacts of strategic interventions. Our Local Knowledge on-line systems and SMART Observatories can then be used to access and monitor the indicators.
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