What Data Should Councils Be Monitoring During a Recession?
Clare King, 23 December 2022
It hasn’t come as a surprise to many that the UK has moved into its second recession—defined as two consecutive quarters of economic decline–in two years. After the global coronavirus pandemic rocked the UK economy in 2020, we’ve seen concurrent crises (the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, inflation) cause the economy to contract.
Many local authorities are facing hard choices ahead, as inflation has potentially added billions to their costs, causing them to make difficult decisions regarding services, delayed projects, infrastructure or other amenities. To shore up councils, the Government has provided additional funding and council tax has risen, but this won’t protect councils from the full impact of this recession.
So, what does this mean for councils? In the current climate, councils should be monitoring their local economies in order to spot risks and discover growth opportunities. This is typically done by undertaking regular temperature checks of your region or local authority, through economic profiling.
What is economic profiling?
Economic profiling refers to the use of public data to discover the economic state of your local area. This is done by finding out which industries, companies and startups are active in the area, alongside details of how many people are employed and where.
How can councils use economic profiling to monitor a recession?
For councils looking to undertake economic profiling, the process is simple. It requires you to choose a few key metrics to track and monitor changes in your local area. Being armed with this information can then guide policy decisions, inform infrastructure projects, and help you to decide where to allocate funding most effectively.
Beauhurst for councils
For data-led decision making to be most effective, you need to use accurate, live data, and for this to be consistent across every team. That’s where Beauhurst comes in.
A large number of councils are already using the Beauhurst platform to track their local ecosystems and help to plan for the year ahead. Here are five key metrics that our council subscribers use:
- Employment growth or decline
- Large corporates at risk of collapse
- Import and export volumes
- Business birth and death rates
- Sector trends
In the current economic climate, having access to reliable, up-to-date metrics will be more important than ever for local governments assessing urgent needs and opportunities.
Looking to learn more? Book a demo of the Beauhurst platform and we’ll help you confidently profile your local area…
Find opportunities and risks in your local economy.
Get access to unrivalled data on all the companies you need to know about, so you can better support your local economy through the recession.
Book a demo today to see key features of the Beauhurst platform, as well as the depth and breadth of data available.
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