Regional economic development, inclusive growth and child poverty in Scotland

A1.1 Purpose

The purpose of this work programme within the project as a whole was to determine the extent of crossover, mutual interest or recognition between two key sets of documents: Local Child Poverty Action Reports (LCPARs) and outputs produced by City Region Deals / City Growth Deals. LCPARs are published annually by all Scottish local authorities in partnership with regional health boards under the stipulation of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act, 2017. There are currently six City Region Deals in Scotland[1] and a further six Regional Growth Deals[2]. Each produces a number of documents, including various strategies, reports and other published outputs[3].

Analyses comprised two simultaneous activities:

• A review of year 2 LCPARs (those published in 2020) checking for references to ‘City Deal’ and related concepts
• A review of City Deal and Regional Growth Deal sources for reference to poverty and related concepts

A1.2 Source material 

A substantial number and - in the case of Growth Deals - a wide range of document types were appraised:

• Year 2 LCPARs were reviewed for the 32 local authorities in Scotland. This was the most recent and complete dataset available (although not every authority had published its LCPAR at the time of this review).

• For Growth Deals, each website was visited and several types of document were searched. These included:

  • Heads of terms
  • Deal documents
  • Newsletters
  • Meeting minutes
  • Strategy documents
  • Benefit realisation plans (where available)

The exercise was completed in the summer of 2021, with reference made to documents publicly available on the Growth Deal web pages at that time.

A1.3 Design 

Research involved a content analysis using processes and protocols created by SPIRU. Bespoke recording spreadsheets were prepared to ensure consistent and systematic data capture. SPIRU Researchers with prior experience of content analysis received further training and undertook a pilot exercise - analysing one LCPAR and one Growth Deal publication - to standardise analyses and refine search the recording protocol. The results of the pilot confirmed the protocols and processes and affirmed the consistency of the researchers’ analyses.

A1.4 Search terms 

Each LCPAR was searched to identify references to:

• The City Deals / Regional Growth Deals deal for that authority, searching for the full name and the type (e.g., ‘Ayrshire Growth Deal’ and ‘Regional Growth Deal’)

• Inclusive economy or inclusive growth

• Community wealth building

• Living wage

Each Growth Deal document was searched to identify references to:

• Poverty or poor

• Deprivation or deprived

• Inequality or inequalities

A1.5 Data processing and analysis

For each search, three data were recorded:

• Manual count of the appearance of each key term

• Verbatim extract of the context of the reference to each term in the source document

• Researcher comment

Professor McKendrick further analysed these data to provide an overview of cross-references (drawing on counts) and to ensure a consistent interpretation of the cross-references.

A1.6 Considerations and caveats

A careful and robust approach to design and administration of the content analysis was employed. Nevertheless, some limitations should be acknowledged; and these are considered when the data are referenced in this report.

• Timeframe. As the interviews have confirmed, there is growing interest in the intersection of the different ideas and concepts analysed in this report. This content analysis provides a snapshot of a particular point in time which, in some cases, is before the current level of interest on the relations between these agendas emerged.

• Availability of documents - Growth Deals. The analysis of Growth Deals documentation aimed to include all readily available publications. However, the documents available on websites was uneven across different Growth Deal areas. Furthermore, Benefits Realisation documents were being prepared for many authorities which are likely to include references to poverty, deprivation, and inequality; however, were not available for analysis.

• Availability of documents - LCPARs. Although it is a statutory responsibility for local authorities and local NHS Board to produce an annual report, due to Covid and other capacity restraints, not every authority had delivered its year 2 report at the time of this research.

• Content analysis. Although an appropriate tool for the purpose of this research, content analysis has some recognised limitations[4].

[1]       For more information, visit: https://www.gov.scot/policies/cities-regions/city-region-deals/