Angus Community Plan 2022 to 2030

Contents


Caring for our economy

Angus has a diverse economy, but the main economic drivers are the service sector, engineering and manufacturing, tourism, food and drink, and agriculture. Angus has long underperformed in terms of wages in relation to the Scottish average due to the mix of urban and rural communities. However, over recent years wages have steadily improved with gross weekly pay now at £614.60 for Angus

residents and £590.30 for those working in Angus. The higher rate for residents can be explained by many Angus residents travelling and working in the nearby cities of Dundee, Aberdeen and beyond for higher paid work.

Partners have been working to improve the situation through the creation of more high paid work opportunities. The investment of £26.5m of an Angus Fund from the Tay Cities Deal is being used as an enabler to provide new well-paid engineering and manufacturing opportunities to support the renewable energy industry off the coast of Angus; to support agri-tech sector; and support rural mobility and all partners will support an ambition to secure inward investment for clean growth in Angus of £1bn over the next 15 years. Clean, green growth represents a big opportunity for Angus and indeed wider region. The strength of the assets at Montrose Port and the skills base can make a strong contribution as the whole Energy Transition gathers pace.

The growth opportunity of agri-tech will capitalise on the area’s strong agricultural/food sector. The CASI (Centre for Agricultural Sustainable Innovation) facilitates collaboration among businesses in the agriculture industry and promotes farm-based sustainable innovations. This will support the commercialisation of food and drink products and ensure leading quality control. The Head Quarter for the CASI will be at the Mart in Forfar.

The Local Employability Partnership will build on the strengths of existing national and local services, to better align funding and to improve the integration of employability services with other support to ensure that services are designed and delivered around the needs and aspirations of those using our services and meets the needs of local employers, now and for the future.

The Local Employability Strategy and Delivery Plan Framework will drive forward the shared ambitions and actions of No One Left Behind creating equal opportunities for our residents to access employment and skills development. Five key areas of focus have been identified by partners and include: - Ensuring an individual focus; developing a small area focus; young people; tackling dispersed rural unemployment and ensuring a regional approach.

Digital access has improved in Angus and now around 87 percent of all premises have access to broadband at 30 megabits per second or more. This has been achieved by recent investment through Tay Cities Deal and Local Full Fibre Network funding, alongside investment by providers in some of the main towns.

The pandemic has also resulted in a much greater need for digital access as many people continuing to work and learn from home and to enable business development as people choose to start up new businesses from home.

The partnership will continue to support economic development via access to digital platforms and will explore new opportunities provided by 5G and the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) to reduce employer costs through shared access and use of specific data. The rural nature of some parts of Angus means that we need to look to mobile technologies to improve broadband accessibility and we are working in partnership with local providers and farm-based businesses to help develop wider coverage.

Our towns are also key to our economy and vacant retail units stubbornly remain at around 15%. The pandemic has almost certainly worsened this position, and we will reimagine how we can best address this decline and renew our high streets through our local place planning.

The signing of the Tay Cities Deal provided a solid base for increased regional activity. Working with partners across the Tay Cities Region and targeting those most in need of support has continued to shape the Community Planning work in Angus, providing a dynamic and flexible approach to economic growth.

Together we will –

  • Deliver The Mercury Programme – A Tay Cities Deal ambition for clean growth, low carbon and Agri tech, creating high paid jobs that positively contribute to our climate.
  • Focus on improving employability, the median weekly wage and enhancing skills for local people to enable an increase in positive destinations for young people through delivery of the Local Employability Strategy and Delivery Plan.
  • Develop an engineering partnership as part of the Tay Cities Deal programme focussed on equipping people with skills for new clean growth opportunities such as offshore wind to ensure the £1 billion investment makes the impact needed to achieve National targets
  • Develop a clean growth proposition for the region contributing towards net zero – creating green jobs and clean growth.
  • Support our rural economy through leadership training, community development, Agri-tourism, and skills development.
  • Ensure collectively that we support progressive procurement of goods and services in our respective organisational plans to support local employment and keep wealth within communities.
  • Deliver actions of the Angus Food Growing Strategy including development of local supply chains.
  • Renew and reimagine our High Streets and work to progressively reduce and renew empty retail and other spaces.
  • Support the development of access to high-speed broadband throughout Angus and be at the forefront of new technology uses through access to 5G networks and Internet of Things (IoT) networks.
  • Work with Fibre providers to deliver their infrastructure in Angus.

Our measures

Target data is set based on upcoming budgets, resources and previous year trends. For new indicators the trend data will be reviewed during the performance reporting period.

Measure

Baseline 20/21

21/22

Update

Target Year 3

Target Year 5

Target Year 8

Employment rate

72.3%

76.5%

77%

78%

79%

Claimant count as a percentage of working age population

 

5.4%

 

NA[1]

 

5.0%

 

4.7%

 

4%

Claimant count as a percentage of 16-24 population

 

7.3%

 

NA1

 

7%

 

6.8%

 

6.6%

Business Survival rate

59.5%

NA1

59.7%

60%

61%

New business starts per 10,000 working age population

47

NA1

48

49

50

Gross value added (GVA) per capita

£16,103

NA1

£16,150

£16,200

£16,300

Gross weekly earnings – Residence based

£614.60

£609.40

£615

£620

£635

Gross weekly earnings – Workforce based

£590.30

£572.30

£585

£600

£610

Proportion of people earning less than minimum wage

25.2%

NA1

24.5%

24.8%

25%

Proportion of properties receiving superfast broadband (>30 megabit/second)

88.1%

86.70%

90%

92%

94%

Premises unable to access 10megabit/second broadband

6.9%

6.8%

6.7%

6.5%

6.3%

Town vacancy rates

16.46%

14.50%

14.2%

14%

13.8%


[1] 2021/22 data not available. Plan will be updated when data available

 

Next: Caring for our people