Metro Dynamics offers a range of services for organisations whose focus is leading, growing or investing in cities.
1 – Analysing city and economic performance
Effective action depends on robust evidence. Our research team helps public sector organisations to understand the drivers of growth and the barriers to development. We help public sector partners understand the effects of connectivity on
their areas and undertake functional economic market assessments (FEMAs). We support professional bodies to understand and promote the economic impact of their members and we support developers and investors to discern the economic realities of the areas they are investing in and consider how they can maximise value.
2 – Creating Momentum: Mobilising and organising for change
The Metro Dynamics team have extensive experience of working with organisations delivering change: in governance, economic policy, public services and in complex financial engineering. We help our clients to mobilise and embed change. We do this through helping our clients to identify clear and credible goals, challenging the existing status quo and developing a narrative for change. We help our clients build coalitions around these narratives and a shared vision for change.
3 – Negotiating with Government
The Metro Dynamics team has unparalleled experience in the development of deals between places and organisations, and Government. We help our clients to establish a robust evidence-based narrative that supports a dialogue with Government. We support our clients to negotiate effectively with Government, helping broker deals that give confidence to both local and central government. For the public sector we help broker financial and devolution deals, and have helped several places across the country re-position themselves to secure better support and recognition from Government. For developers and investors we help our clients to understand the underlying policy dynamics in cities and to build wider engagement and support for their plans.
4 – Establishing strong and transparent governance
Good governance arrangements are essential in order for places to be seen as responsible partners externally and within areas. We work with our clients to establish an appropriate model for collaborative governance that has the collective buy-in of relevant stakeholders, that promotes transparency and accountability, and that helps support effective and timely decision-making. We help our private sector clients understand what communication and consultation mechanisms they need to work effectively with the public sector.
5 – Brokering public service reform
There is increasing recognition that effective reform can drive cost savings and quality improvements in public services. Our team has extensive public service reform experience including: demand management, public health, and behavioural change. We help shape public service reform strategy, working with groups of officers to extract the best framework for reform, and reality testing these ideas against Whitehall thinking and best practice in other places. We also help our private sector clients consider how they can support public service reform in a way that opens up new markets for their products and services.
6 – Financing growth plans
We have extensive experience of helping places use new funding mechanisms to turn strategy objectives into practical action. Our team is at the leading edge of financing mechanisms for local government in the UK. We use detailed financial data and financial modelling to develop a robust picture of the current and future financial position, including modelling potential funding scenarios. We work with our public sector clients and their partners to establish assessment frameworks that allow for equitable and transparent decision making where pooled funding is used across multiple areas. We support our clients to understand how to make use of new financial freedoms and powers being devolved by Government. We help our private sector clients to understand the opportunities for investment in large scale development programmes.
7 – Crafting and communicating a successful message
Metro Dynamics is a market leader in helping places develop and communicate effective messages that support change. We undertake reputation audits on behalf of our clients, helping them to understand how they are perceived by key stakeholders. We help our clients to develop narratives that help drive change, and test these narratives so that they resonate with target audiences. We advise our clients how to build support within Westminster and Whitehall and across the political parties.
