Decision details

The Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy has been updated and will be presented for Executive Board approval. It is one of the three key pillars sitting underneath the Best City Ambition and outlines how we are working towards achieving inclusive economic growth for the city.

The Director of City Development submitted a report presenting the updated Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy for the period 2023- 2030, with the updated strategy setting out nine refreshed ‘Big Ideas’ for how best to deliver growth that benefits all citizens and communities and which is set within the three themes of ‘People’, ‘Place’ and ‘Productivity’.

Further to Minute No. 32, with the agreement of the Chair, supplementary information was circulated to Board Members ahead of the meeting in relation to this item in the form of Appendix 2, which was the proposed strategy document.

In presenting the report, the Executive Member provided an overview of the strategy’s achievements to date together with a summary of the key proposals for the strategy moving forward.

Responding to an enquiry regarding how the success of the updated strategy would be defined, the Board received further details on how the progress being made by the strategy would be monitored and measured, with the Board also receiving further context on the range of factors which would need to be taken into consideration when judging the success of the strategy, with the Social Progress Index being highlighted as a key resource combined with other measures including the proposed submission of an annual progress report. 

RESOLVED –

(a)  That the new Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy 2023 - 2030, as appended to the submitted report, be agreed, and that approval also be given for the strategy’s publication;

(b)  That approval be given for the Director of City Development to lead on implementing the delivery of the Leeds Inclusive Growth Strategy 2023 – 2030;

(c)  That approval be given to the proposed approach towards stakeholder engagement in order to support the implementation of the strategy;

(d)  That moving forward, approval be given for an annual progress report to be submitted to Executive Board.

The 2018-2023 strategy was developed following extensive public consultation and also reflects previous and upcoming work, for example consultations via the Future Talent Plan, Innovation Arc, Local Plan Update and Transport Strategy. The feedback from these consultations and resulting pieces of work were fed into the development of the Inclusive Growth Strategy.

An engagement event brought together the Inclusive Growth Partnership, which took place in January 2023 with an update in July. This allowed cross-sectoral representatives to input into the development.

Executive Member for Economy, Culture and Education.

In addition to the consultation process outlined, targeted stakeholder engagement was carried out between November 2022 and May 2023. For example: Anchors Executive Group, Health and Wellbeing Board, Culture Consortium, Manufacturing Alliance Steering Group, Third Sector Partnership and many others.