Creating the Total Towns Outcomes Framework

Earlier this year we shared that we’re part of a consortium helping local authorities across England access the Towns Fund — a £3.6bn fund to accelerate local economic growth. With the support of the consortium, towns are engaging with their communities, public and private partners and investors to create sustainable change for their places.

Critical to the success of the Towns Fund is not just the legacy it leaves in terms of capital build programmes, but also the longer-term impact on community wellbeing. This is why we’ve developed the Total Towns Outcomes Framework, a tool to help towns think more holistically about their longer-term vision and outcomes and the impact they ultimately want to have on people and their place.

Aligning with the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s (MHCLG) requirements, the tool is designed to help the 101 towns think beyond simply ‘getting the funding’ to begin thinking about how they can use their Towns Fund projects as a catalyst for bigger change.

Total Towns Outcomes Framework

Every town is different with its own history and unique set of circumstances and challenges. This framework is designed to help each town identify their individual strengths and build on them.

The Total Towns Outcomes Framework is split into two parts:

• place-based outcomes and assets
• organisational factors

Designed in this way, the tool helps towns consider both the outcomes they want to achieve in the long term and what’s required from their Towns Fund projects to achieve them.

Using the framework as a reflection and decision-making tool, Town Deal Boards have been able to use the framework alongside a self-assessment questionnaire and collaboratively prioritise what’s important to their communities, identifying the steps required to create an economically-sustainable place in the coming years. The results of this process are being used to better tailor and target our support for towns, including the development of town-led communities of practice connecting towns together where they might have similar challenges ahead of them.

The Towns Fund will help our places thrive over the coming years as we navigate into recovery. Through this framework towns are able to take an outcomes-based approach helping ensure decisions about capital build projects are guided by their higher ambitions, supporting wellbeing, economic growth, and sustainability.

Download the Total Towns Outcomes Framework