Derrick Johnstone

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May 09 2008

Clients – local

Permanent link to this article: https://www.educe.co.uk/?p=149

May 09 2008

Susan Johnstone

Susan has extensive experience in delivering consultancy projects in economic regeneration and employment. She has managed national good practice research assignments on Business Link services, and on enterprise, education and employability components of regeneration and neighbourhood renewal strategies. More widely, she has contributed to a wide range of urban, rural and overseas projects covering strategy review, programme and project design, partnership development, benchmarking, growth companies and sectors, sustainability and regeneration.
 

Her background is in the City as a senior fund manager with a mutual insurance company where she was responsible for one of the first UK equity funds to be run on ethical principles. Subsequently she worked as a freelance financial journalist and a researcher for clients such as Mintel, before becoming an economic development consultant with GFA Consulting.
 

Susan graduated in Geography from the University of Oxford, having specialised in regional, social and political geography. Her professional training has been in corporate valuation and performance measurement, the management of change in the public sector, and the science, technology and policy relating to climate change. 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.educe.co.uk/?p=145

May 09 2008

Five Vital Lessons: Successful Partnerships with Business

‘Five Vital Lessons: Successful Partnership with Business‘ was an interactive website featuring tools, good practice lessons and case studies relating to getting the most out economic development partnerships involving the private sector. Aims to help you achieve your common goals with less pain and more gain.

Tools included:

  • High Performing Partnerships (how well is your partnership performing?)
  • Partnership Life Cycle (work out how to make your partnership more productive)
  • Involving the Private Sector (ways of maximising the benefits of business involvement in partnerships)
The tool was originally developed (with GFA Consulting) for the Department for Education and Skills in April 2001.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.educe.co.uk/?p=141

May 09 2008

Smarter Partnerships website

We developed the Smarter Partnerships interactive website to help users improve partnership skills and performance, on behalf of the Employers Organisation for Local Government which at the time had responsibility for skills development in the sector. When this became part of the Local Government Association the site unfortunately was no longer maintained, despite evidence of continuing use.Smarter Partnerships provided:
  • tools to assist individuals, cross-agency teams and partnerships assess both (i) partnership development and (ii) individual and team learning needs.
  • on-line resources: case studies, tools and links to help users address learning needs and improve partnership working
Smarter Partnerships was unusual for a diagnostic tool, in that not only did it help the user clarify their needs, but also provided practical suggestions for actions to take tailored to their particular needs.The project was originally funded by the then Department for Education and Skills, and built on a ‘state of the art’ review in 2000 of partnerships and local government.We also made presentations and run workshops linked to Smarter Partnerships, eg, for Bedfordshire Strategic Service Delivery Partnership, CIPFA Scotland, Essex County Council (Scrutiny), HM Treasury ‘Invest to Save’ annual conference, and the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Department.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.educe.co.uk/?p=210

May 01 2008

Making the most of Local Strategic Partnerships

Educe were members of the team which provided support for local authorities and their partners in Local Strategic Partnerships in the West Midlands in 2007/09: the Learning to Deliver (L2D) programme. This was an initiative of the Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands, funded to help strengthen delivery of Local Area Agreements.

Part of role was to act as an improvement adviser with West Midlands LSPs, as well as supporting work specifically on economic development and worklessness aspects of the L2D programme as a whole. The latter led to our role in relation to the West Midlands regional worklessness network (see separate details).

The other aspect of our contribution to L2D was the production of briefings and guidance material on key topics for LSPs. These included:

  • current awareness digest for LSPs and LAAs (each issue features developments in policy and practice relevant to people playing key roles in driving change and improvement) – final issue, November 2009 ( pdf 339KB)
  • Five Steps to Better Outcomes  ( pdf 583KB) a guide to delivery planning, assisting local partners in making a success of Local Area Agreements, working out how best to achieve community outcomes.

and briefings on:

Permanent link to this article: https://www.educe.co.uk/?p=137