Case studies

Dudley is a predominantly urban borough in the West Midlands, with five main towns interspersed with smaller towns and urban villages. It has a population of around 313,000 people, and a mix of affluent and disadvantaged areas. Nearly a quarter of the population live in areas that are in the 20 per cent most deprived in England.

In March 2018, Dundee City Council signed the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, committing the Dundee Partnership to develop a Climate Action Plan within two years to reduce city-wide carbon emissions by 40% by 2030.

With the onset of COVID-19, Durham County Council needed to identify vulnerable individuals in the area and target them with specific assistance services.

Over the past year there has been considerable media speculation as to the carbon impacts of enforced homeworking. Has working from home helped to reduce carbon emissions? The home working energy usage project sought to take advantage of the enforced homeworking that became essential for most non-frontline staff at Durham County Council and Durham University to explore the empirical truth.

Healthy Start is a national scheme which helps young families and those pregnant on low incomes to access nutritious food, milk and vitamins. Figures are published on its take-up at local authority level, with one of the best rates of take-up being County Durham. In February 2023 the England average uptake was 63.5 per cent, while the figure for County Durham was 73 per cent.

Procurement fraud is regularly reported to be the single largest area of financial loss to local government. It is vulnerable because there are multiple ways to commit fraud and is also vulnerable to being exploited by Organised Crime Groups (OCGs).

Ealing council's COVID-19 Vaccine Working Group made important decisions through analysing data on vaccine uptake in the borough to engage communities from low socio-economic groups and ethnic minority backgrounds.

Early Help 4 Mental Health is a prevention and early intervention programme operating across Devon, working with schools to promote and build mentally healthy behaviours and resilience.

Peopletoo carried out an evaluation of Bristol City Council's targeted Early Help and commissioned services to assess the current model and offer an independent assessment of its effectiveness and value for money, while also considering further opportunities to provide a more joined up and cost effective approach. This case study forms part of our productivity experts resource.

The Somerset Preschool Lifestyle Activity and Skills for self Help programme aims to develop family-focused early intervention and prevention strategies, emphasising the importance of mental wellbeing alongside physical health.