PolicyDepartment Ltd
PolicyDepartment is a specialist UK economic development consultancy at the intersection of public policy, employer voice and deliverable strategy. We help government agencies, local and Combined Authorities, Chambers of Commerce, sector bodies and civic institutions turn policy ambition into evidence-based, fundable, implementable strategy. Founded in 2020 by Mike Spicer, formerly Director of Economics, Research, and Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, we bring economists, strategists and public affairs expertise to every commission, and share what we learn through the LED Confidential podcast.
We provide four services:
- Economic Intelligence: evidence bases, economic assessments and labour market analyses that stand up to scrutiny from funders, inspectors, elected members and delivery partners. Includes our free Evidence Stack Builder tool.
- Labour Market and Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs): development, refresh and review of statutory LSIPs, local skills plans and labour market strategies, combining employer voice, labour market intelligence and knowledge of official requirements.
- Strategy and Action Planning: local economic strategies, growth plans, visions and delivery plans built to be approved, funded and delivered, plus independent reviews of draft strategies. Includes our free Strategy Coherence Checker.
- Appraisals and Evaluations: business cases, economic appraisals, evaluation frameworks and process and impact evaluations, following the Green Book and Magenta Book and scaled to the size of the funding.
What makes us special is that we work seamlessly across the functional divides of economic development. We provide end-to-end insight and support for our clients: we can analyse problems but campaign for the solutions too.
Products and services
Appraisals and Evaluations
PolicyDepartment builds business cases and appraisals, and designs and delivers process and impact evaluations and light-touch reviews. We follow HM Treasury's Green Book and the Magenta Book, programme-specific evaluation frameworks (where they exist), and we scale the work appropriately to the size of the funding envelope.
Strategy and Action Plans
PolicyDepartment turns an evidence base into a coherent economic strategy and a deliverable action plan. A credible strategy is more than a vision: it diagnoses where a place is now, is honest about where it is heading on current trends, makes real choices about priorities, and sets out who will do what, by when, to change course. We develop strategies and action plans, and we review draft strategies against the components that funders, government and partners expect to see, so a plan is coherent and approval-ready before it is signed off.
Labour Market and Skills Plans
PolicyDepartment develops, refreshes and reviews local skills plans and labour market strategies, including statutory Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs). We bring together the employer perspective, labour market intelligence and a deep understanding of official requirements, so a plan acts on the priorities that actually matter and stands up when it reaches its scrutiny stage.
Economic Intelligence
Economic Intelligence from PolicyDepartment is the evidence base that underpins a credible, place-based economic strategy, investment or innovation prospectus, labour market or skills plan. We assemble the right evidence in the right order so the priorities that follow are grounded in fact rather than assumption.