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Report of Phase 2 ofJoint Research Project

Derek Walker

Local Authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Growth Agenda

CEDOSCHIEF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OFFICERS’ SOCIETY

CEDOSThe Chief Economic Development Officers Society (CEDOS) provides a forum for Heads of Economic Development in upper tier local authorities throughout England. Membership includes county, city and unitary Councils in non-metropolitan areas. The Society carries out research, develops and disseminates best practice, and publishes reports on key issues for economic development policy and practice. Through its collective expertise it seeks to play its full part in helping to inform and shape national and regional policies and initiatives.

The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) represents local authority Strategic Directors who manage some of the most pressing issues facing the UK today. The expertise of ADEPT members and their vision is fundamental in the handling of issues that affect all our lives. Operating at the strategic tier of local government they are responsible for crucial transport, waste management, environment, planning, energy and economic development issues. ADEPT membership is drawn from all four corners of the United Kingdom.

This report has been prepared as part of the ADEPT and CEDOS research programmes, which aims to inform policy makers and practitioners in Local and Central Government and Local Enterprise Partnerships. The views expressed are however those of the author and contributors to the surveys/report and not necessarily those of our organisations. This is the 2nd report of the research project ‘How local authorities are contributing to the growth agenda through Local Enterprise Partnerships’ being jointly funded by ADEPT and CEDOS.

The report’s findings are illustrated by a wide range of facts, figures, examples and case studies. As the report has been produced at a time when LEPs are in the midst of a period of rapid change with Strategic Economic Plans being produced and the negotiation of local Growth Deals being embarked upon, readers need to be aware that facts and figures could inevitably be subject to change since the report was written.

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EADEPTLocal Authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Growth Agenda

Foreword

The last three years have seen the biggest change in sub-national

economic development arrangements for more than a decade

with the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies and the

creation of the new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

Local authorities have welcomed the focus on localism and they have

enthusiastically supported the establishment of LEPs working in

close partnership with their business communities. Our joint research

programme aims to make an important contribution to assessing the

way LEPs and local authorities are taking action to drive local growth.

This second report of the series looks at LEPs throughout England,

drawing on available research and surveys of our members across the

country undertaken specifically for the project. Throughout, the report’s

findings are illustrated by a wide range of examples and case studies,

which we hope will help to disseminate information and good practice.

We are, of course, aware that things are developing rapidly and that facts

and figures referred to could inevitably be subject to change since the

report was written.

As the report shows, local authorities continue to be the main local

funders of LEPs. They are actively supporting them through staff and

elected member time and expertise and by taking on the role of being

accountable bodies and providing services and, crucially, delivering

schemes and investing in growth. The report contains many examples

from across the country of local authorities investing in infrastructure

and leading on business initiatives to make things happen and drive

forward local and national economic growth.

It is welcome to report that LEPs are making significant progress. This is

despite the fact that Government policy and funding for LEPs has been

one of incremental often piecemeal development and as the National

Audit Office has pointed out, the intention to ensure an orderly transi-

tion from the Regional Development Agencies to the new delivery

landscape was not achieved. Moreover, the Government’s continuing

emphasis on central approvals and controls and nationally judged

competitive bidding processes has impacted on the time taken to get

LEPs up and running effectively.

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Nevertheless, we very much welcome the funding and support that

has now been made available to LEPs including the Local Growth Fund

and local Growth Deals. Whilst there is disappointment in particular

over its initial size and the fact that it is not so far a true single pot, the

introduction of the Local Growth Fund is an important step forward

for localism. What is needed now is to build on this and put in place a

genuinely devolved approach and for LEPs to be given the policy conti-

nuity and the cross-party support to give them certainty to do the job of

promoting local economic growth.

Local authorities in partnership with local businesses will continue to

have a key role in enabling LEPs to take the growth agenda forward but

the scale of cuts to local government funding presents a major chal-

lenge. If they are to continue to provide their essential support and to be

able to invest in business support and the infrastructure for local growth,

fiscal devolution with the necessary freedoms and flexibilities applied

equally and fairly across England is an increasing imperative.

With the Local Growth Fund and local Growth Deals due to start in

2015, Local Enterprise Partnerships are entering a new phase in their

development and this report concludes by looking at the way local areas

are gearing up to meet the Government’s expectations. Clearly much

remains to be done and the report includes recommendations for LEPs,

local authorities and the Government to ensure the local growth agenda

can succeed. Both our organisations are ready to work with Government

to help make things happen.

David Walsh Huw Jones

Chair Chair ADEPT Growth

CEDOS & Regeneration Board

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Contents

Findings & Recommendations 6

1. Introduction 13

2. Local Enterprise Partnerships – A still Developing Agenda 14

3. Progress in Establishing LEPs 21

4. The Crucial Role of Local Authorities 32

5. What are LEPs Achieving? 41

6. Growth Deals and the Local Growth Fund 57– the next Phase of LEP Development

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Findings & Recommendations

Summary of Findings

Local Enterprise Partnerships – A still developing agenda Government policy and funding for LEPs has been one of incremental,

often piecemeal development lacking a fully thought through and

coherent approach across Government Departments.

The Government’s intention to ensure an orderly transition from the

Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to the new delivery landscape

has not been achieved.

The change from RDAs to LEPs has been accompanied by a significant

reduction in central government spending on local economic growth

programmes.

With their growing responsibilities and resources, the issue of LEP gover-

nance and accountability is increasingly significant.

Overlapping LEP boundaries and the range of often uncoordinated

local growth policy initiatives are leading to increasingly complex sub

national economic development arrangements.

The Local Growth Fund and the intention to negotiate local Growth

Deals for LEPs mark the beginning of a new phase in local growth policy,

which presents new challenges and opportunities for both local authori-

ties and LEPs and for Government.

Progress in establishing LEPs LEPs across the country have made considerable progress in establishing

strong business-led boards; developing their capacity; and putting in

place growth plans.

The size of LEP boards and the balance of their make up between busi-

ness and civic leaders varies considerably across the country. In addition

to their main boards, many have set up a range of other structures to

develop and implement their strategies.

Core funding for LEPs has been used mainly to increase LEP staff

capacity. Local match funding, both in cash and in kind, has been almost

exclusively provided by the local authorities.

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There is considerable variation in LEP staff numbers and the extent to

which staff support is provided by LEPs directly or is made available by

partner organisations also varies.

Business representatives, especially the private sector board members,

are making a significant contribution of time and expertise but there

is an ongoing need to sustain the engagement of the wider business

community.

With LEPs’ increasing responsibilities and funding, many areas are

reviewing their governance and accountability and the working arrange-

ments between LEPs and their constituent local authorities.

The crucial role of local authorities The practical involvement and support of local authorities, especially

the strategic city, unitary and county authorities, has been critical at all

stages in the development of LEPs.

Local authorities continue to make a major contribution to the operating

costs of LEPs, including being the prime source of the local match for

Government core funding.

Despite their increased operational capacity, LEPs continue to rely

significantly on local authority economic development and other staff

resources and expertise.

Local authorities across the country have been pro-active in taking on

accountable body, legal, employment and other specialist roles and

services.

LEPs have a considerable degree of dependence on their local authori-

ties’ funding, expertise and support. The local authority role is crucial in

delivering LEP Strategic Economic Plans, particularly for the funding and

delivery of major infrastructure schemes and business growth initiatives.

Continuing cuts in Government funding for local authorities may mean

that the current financial and staff resources being provided are not

sustainable and they may have to look to other approaches including

charging for services to LEPs and recouping costs from the outcomes of

LEP initiatives.

What are LEPs achieving? Overall, there is increasing momentum with a growing list of achieve-

ments, including by LEPs which began as largely or completely new

partnerships. However, for many it is still relatively early days, underlining

the fact that it takes time for new structures find their feet and start to

make real progress.

There is good progress in achieving strong and effective partnership

working between public and private sectors. All LEPs have growth

plans in place and are working to a tight timetable to submit their final

Strategic Economic Plans.

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In looking at their own achievements many LEPs highlight taking

advantage of Government funding e.g. Growing Places Fund (GPF) and

Regional Growth Fund, (RGF) and other opportunities notably the desig-

nation of Enterprise Zones (EZs).

Improving critical infrastructure – transport, employment site develop-

ment and high speed broadband is a priority for LEPs across the country

for which local authorities have a crucial role in investing in and deliv-

ering key schemes.

GPF allocations to LEPs were not made until February/March 2012 and

local schemes had to be set up and robust decision-making processes

put in place. Whilst the majority of the forecast outcomes remain to be

achieved, significant progress is being made.

The GPF process has much to commend it - allocating it to LEPs as an

un-ringfenced grant has given local control and reduced central bureau-

cracy.

A number of LEPs have been pro-active in combining funding opportu-

nities to create bigger local funding pools and developing programmes

that cover more than one LEP area.

Councils have been pro-active in bringing forward and supporting

Enterprise Zones, including investing in necessary infrastructure

improvements but the National Audit Office says that overall job

creation has been slow and EZ’s face a significant challenge to create the

number of jobs expected.

Supporting business growth is a key priority for LEPs, with initiatives

such as Business Growth Hubs, information portals, business mentoring,

advice events and networking programmes, support for innovation and

export promotion.

LEPs throughout the country have supported private sector bids for

Regional Growth Funding and several have been successful in securing

RGF for their own local projects and programmes, enabling SMEs to

access funding.

Although promoting innovation is led nationally, some LEPs have been

active in using Government funding to support innovation. Skills devel-

opment is a key priority with LEPs developing skills plans and piloting

new approaches.

LEPs will increasingly be judged both nationally and locally on the

extent to which they are delivering local economic growth and the

outcomes they are achieving. The National Audit Office has called on

the Government Departments to address how they intend to evaluate

performance and monitor outcomes.

Measuring outcomes will be increasingly important for local authorities,

given the substantial level of investment in terms of finance and time

being made. However, performance measurement systems must be

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proportionate and the performance indicators used must be relevant.

It will be equally important to avoid making unrealistic comparisons

between LEPs, which have very different characteristics and circum-

stances.

Growth Deals and the Local Growth Fund – The next phase of LEP development Local Enterprise Partnerships continue to develop and the announce-

ments on Growth Deals and the Local Growth Fund from 2015 mark the

beginning of a new phase.

Local Growth Fund (LGF) – Whilst there is disappointment in particular

over its initial size and the fact that it is not yet a true single pot, LGF is an

important step in taking forward the localism agenda. However, there is

widespread concern in particular at:

■ the size of the Fund for 2015/16 with around half of the national

allocation made up of already devolved funding streams;

■ the amount coming from sources of funding, which have already

been committed to projects;

■ the costs and bureaucracy involved in competitive bidding for

around half of the Fund should not be underestimated;

■ the lack of flexibility and the issue of internal ring fences for some

components of LGF; in future years, a return to the original intention

of a Single Local Growth Fund is needed.

Growth Deals – The initial guidance states that in assessing Strategic

Economic Plans (SEPs), Government will be looking for a range of key

characteristics. These were addressed in the member surveys for this

research but with SEPs still to be finalised, the findings are provisional

- things are moving quickly and will need to be kept under review.

Local authority commitments to maintaining activities on economic devel-

opment and growth – Generally the priority on economic development is

being maintained with activities broadly being retained despite budget

cuts over the last two years on top of the significant reductions in the

previous two years.

Looking forward over the next year, there is considerable uncertainty

given the pressure on resources, councils being asked to make

significant overall savings, and in some cases further restructuring being

undertaken/in prospect.

Over the longer term, the outlook is one of continued reductions in

council’s spending power which, despite local government’s commit-

ment, can only add to the uncertainty for spending on economic devel-

opment and growth.

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Collective decision-making by local authorities in LEPs – The issue is still

under consideration in many areas. Whilst some are moving forward

with Combined Authorities, Joint Leaders Boards/Committees are the

likely approach for most areas.

Aligning or pooling of local authority spend on growth – Although local

authorities are working closely together, at this stage there is a good

deal of uncertainty on the prospects for pooling. The difficulties should

not be underestimated, particularly in two-tier areas with a large number

of councils involved and where LEPs have a large geographical coverage.

Overlapping LEP boundaries add a further complication.

Collaboration on economic development activities across LEP areas – There

is a high degree of effective joint working across local authority bound-

aries in LEP areas. However, there are different positions on the issue of

merging economic development teams, which to an extent varies with

whether or not LEPs have been built on pre-existing partnerships. As

regards merging teams, it may be this is most likely to be practical at the

level of individual economic development service areas such as inward

investment.

LEP decision-making, governance & accountability – The increasing

responsibilities and funding of LEPs underlines the importance of robust

and transparent local governance and accountability arrangements not

only for the delivery of LEP strategies but also for making the strategic

decisions on the spending of public money. In many areas, the gover-

nance & accountability arrangements are still being reviewed.

LEP Boundaries – The surveys for the project show little likelihood of

boundary changes being proposed at present but there are significant

issues in some areas and overlapping boundary factors are likely to

intensify with the advent of more City Deals and LEP Growth Deals.

A new phase in LEP developmentLEPs are entering a new phase of development. Inevitably it has taken

time for them, as new structures, to get up and running and operate

effectively but they are now established, making progress and achieving

things. They need to have a period of stability with certainty of support

and funding.

The role of local authorities in delivering the local growth agenda will

continue to be crucial. However, whilst local authorities across the

country are prioritising economic growth, the problems they face as a

result of funding cuts in the context of competing local service priorities

must not be underestimated.

If they are to continue to provide the current level of operational support

and funding to LEPs, local authorities need a period of financial stability.

In addition, to enable them to continue to invest in growth, there is a

need for a real move to fiscal devolution accompanied by the necessary

freedoms and flexibilities.

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Local authorities need to have the freedom to explore alternative means

of raising finance to invest in local growth and give local areas the scope

to design solutions that meet their individual needs and circumstances

in a way that nationally designed programmes cannot do.

Fiscal devolution must cover all areas of England with both city and

county areas treated fairly and with proper recognition of their impor-

tant economic contributions. Devolution must extend beyond London

and the core cities, vitally important as they are, to cover this country’s

mid-size cities and its county areas.

If fiscal devolution excludes areas outside London and the core cities,

there will be a considerable risk of increased inequality between local

areas, increased regional imbalance and uncertainty for the business

community, which could hold back economic growth both locally and

nationally.

A challenging period aheadWith Strategic Economic Plans to be finalised, local Growth Deals to be

negotiated, the Local Growth Fund to come on stream in 2015 and a

General Election to be held in the same year, the period ahead for LEPs is

both challenging and uncertain and developments will need to be kept

under ongoing review.

Recommendations■ LEPs will need to keep their structures under review to ensure they

remain fit for purpose and meet the requirement of being high level strategic bodies and not become unwieldy bureaucracies.

■ LEPs must continue to develop an in-depth understanding of local business needs and develop strategies to engage and sustain the involvement of their local business communities as a whole to achieve greater private sector input, expertise and resources.

■ There is a need to develop forms of governance and accountability for LEPs in which democratically elected local authorities are an essential foundation and which give businesses a real say in making decisions to drive forward local economic growth.

■ Local authorities must maintain their priority on economic development and growth and support for LEPs but with the continuing cuts in Government funding, they may need to look to charging for services to LEPs and recouping costs from the outcomes of LEP initiatives.

■ Measuring LEP performance in delivering local economic growth will be increasingly important but systems put in place must be propor-tionate with performance measures locally relevant and realistic.

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■ Government and local authorities should avoid making unrealistic comparisons between LEPs, which have very different characteristics and circumstances.

■ The Local Growth Fund is an important step forward but to ensure that the ambition for the Fund can be fully realised, Government must address the widespread concerns about its overall size and the way it is made up; the costs and bureaucracy involved in the competitive approach for much of the Fund; and its lack of flexibility.

■ LEPs and local authorities should not only maximise the opportunities presented by the Local Growth Fund but also look beyond the £2 billion that has been announced and seek to influence overall Government spending priorities.

■ It will be important for local Growth Deals to result in a genuine devolution of funding streams with buy-in across Government Departments and for the Local Growth Fund to be developed to become a truly devolved single pot without internal ring fences for local decision–making and spending on locally determined priorities.

■ LEPs must keep the areas they cover and their boundaries under review, especially where they overlap with neighbouring LEPs.

■ Now they are established and making progress, LEPs need to have stability - Government should aim to achieve cross-party agreement to give LEPs continuity and certainty of support and funding.

■ Within Government, the establishment of the joint LEP team is welcomed and should be built upon to achieve a coordinated approach with consistent support and engagement across Departments.

■ Local authorities need to have a period of Government funding stability if they are to be able to continue their current level of funding and support to LEPs in the context of competing local service priorities.

■ Fiscal devolution accompanied by the necessary freedoms and flexibilities is needed to enable local authorities to explore alternative means of finance to invest in local growth and give local areas the scope to provide solutions that meet their individual needs and circumstances.

■ Fiscal devolution must cover all areas of England with both city and county areas treated fairly and with proper recognition of their important economic contributions.

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1. Introduction

1.1 2010 saw the biggest shift for more than a decade in regional/sub-regional economic development delivery arrangements with the decision by the Government to close the Regional Development Agencies and create new Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). In a letter to local authority and business leaders in June 2010, the Secretaries of State for Business, Innovation & Skills and for Communities & Local Government underlined the Government’s commitment to “reforming our system of sub-national economic development by enabling councils and business leaders to replace the existing Regional Development Agencies”. They invited groups of local authorities and businesses to submit proposals to set up Local Enterprise Partnerships, the first of which were approved in October 2010.

1.2 This joint research project by CEDOS and ADEPT is looking at the progress being made by LEPs and in particular at how local authorities are contributing to the growth agenda through the partnerships. The first report was produced in early 2013 and underlined the point that LEPs across the country were at different stages of development. Not all had been established at the same time; some were developed from previously existing sub-regional partnerships; whilst others had to start from scratch. Moreover, the considerable variation in LEPs by size and the extent to which they cross administrative boundaries had affected the time required to get new partnerships up and running.

1.3 The report also showed that the practical involvement and support of local authorities had been critical at all stages of LEP development including: bringing partners together and facilitating the formation of LEP boards; leading on preparing bids for LEP approval and for Government funding; providing core financial support and committing significant amounts of staff time; taking on specific roles e.g. acting as accountable bodies, providing secretariats and specialist advice; and making things happen through project initiation, develop-ment and management.

1.4 Since then much has happened. The Government has responded to Lord Heseltine’s growth review; further core/capacity building funding for LEPs has come on stream, followed by announcements on LEP Strategic Economic Plans and EU Structural & Investment Fund (EU SIF) strategies, the Local Growth Fund and local Growth Deals. Moreover, all this has taken place against the background of an increasingly complex sub-national economic development landscape with a second wave of City Deals and the establishment of Local Transport Bodies

1.5 This second and final report of the current project looks at things after a further year and three years on from the completion of Government approvals of LEPs to cover all areas of England. It assesses in more detail: the progress made in establishing LEPs nationwide; the crucial role of local authorities in supporting LEPs and in investing for growth against the background of a forecast 43% reduction in local government funding in the lifetime of the current Parliament; and at what LEPs have achieved so far. Finally, it makes a critical assessment of the Local Growth Fund; takes an early look at how local authorities and LEPs are gearing up for the expectations of Government in the context of their Strategic Plans and negotiating local Growth Deals; and looks forward at what is needed to enable local authorities and LEPs to drive forward local growth as LEPs enter a new phase of their development.

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2. Local Enterprise Partnerships

– a Still Developing Agenda

2.1 It is now more than three years since the Government announced the intention to close the Regional Development Agencies and support the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships. As this chapter shows, the Government’s agenda for LEPs has been one of incremental, often piecemeal development that suggests the lack of a fully thought through and coherent approach across Government Departments. This is exemplified by a changing position on funding and the role and functions of LEPs as well as other policy developments, whose lack of coordination complicates the still developing LEP agenda.

From RDAs to LEPs

2.2 Following the General Election in May 2010, the new Coalition’s Programme for Government announced: “We will support the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) – joint local authority-business bodies brought forward by local authorities themselves to promote local economic development – to replace Regional Development Agencies (RDAs)1”. More detail was provided in a subsequent letter to council and business leaders inviting proposals to establish LEPs for Government approval2. The first group of approved LEPs was announced as part of the Local Growth White Paper in October 2010 and by January 2011 39 LEPs had been approved covering all areas of England but with, in some cases, substantial areas of overlap.

2.3 The Government undertook to ensure “an orderly transition from the Regional Development Agencies to the new delivery landscape”3 but this has not been achieved. The National Audit Office has contrasted the effectiveness by which Government closed the RDAs and abolished certain functions or transferred them upwards to central Departments and their agencies with the new local growth structures and programmes, which had been conceived and introduced gradually and over a different time frame4.

2.4 In addition, the change from RDAs to LEPs has been accompanied by a signifi-cant reduction in central government spending on local economic growth as part of the Government’s deficit reduction programme. The National Audit Office reports5 that over the five-year period 2010/11 to 2014/15 the govern-ment will have spent £6.2 billion on local growth programmes, including that spent via RDAs and their legacy, and spend on new funds and structures6. By comparison the RDAs spent £11.2 billion over the preceding five-year period 2005/06 to 2009/10.

2.5 As regards the distribution of funding across England, the National Audit Office reports that areas with the highest growth funding per head of working age population tend to be in the North, major city regions and the South West, whilst the areas with the lowest growth funding tend to be in central and southern England. This reflects in particular the aims of the Regional Growth Fund, which is the largest single component of funding.

1 The Coalition: Our Programme for Government HM Government 20 May 2010

2 Letter from Secretary of State for Business Innovation & Skills and Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government to local authority leaders and business leaders in England 29 June 2010

3 Local Growth Realising Every Place’s Potential HM Government October 2010

4 Funding & Structures for Local Economic Growth National Audit Office December 2013

5 ibid

6 LEPs, Enterprise Zones, Growing Places Fund, Regional Growth Fund and City Deals

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Lord Heseltine’s Review

2.6 In his 2012 Budget Statement, the Chancellor announced that Lord Heseltine would undertake an independent review into how Government spending departments and other relevant public sector bodies interact with the private sector, and assess their capacity to deliver progrowth policies. In his report7, Lord Heseltine gave strong support for the localism agenda calling on the Government to reverse the centralising trend of the past century and unleash the dynamic potential of local economies.

2.7 The publication of Lord Heseltine’s report marked a pivotal point in the devel-opment of local growth policy in this Parliament. He proposed a very significant devolution of funding from central government to Local Enterprise Partnerships so that government investment in economic development is tailored directly to the individual challenges and opportunities of local areas; and recommended that:

■ central government should identify the budgets administered by different departments which support growth; these should be brought together into a single funding pot for local areas, without internal ring fences;

■ local partnerships should bid for funds from central government on a competitive basis; bids should be for a minimum of five years starting from 2015/16;

■ government should streamline its management of EU Common Strategic Framework Funds in England, strip out the bureaucracy of multiple programmes and align local allocations from the four Funds with the single funding pot;

■ LEPs, in collaboration with local stakeholders, should lead the development of a long term strategy and business plans for their areas that would be used to bid for economic growth funds from central government;

■ government should allocate LEPs up to £250,000 of new public funding in each of 2013/14 and 2014/15 to devise their local economic strategies and create the foundations for their implementation;

■ government should invite LEPs to review their boundaries within a three month period to ensure they have a good match with their functional economic market areas and that they do not overlap.

2.8 LEPs were intended to “reflect the natural economic geography of the areas they serve and hence cover real functional economic and travel to work areas”8 and to be sufficiently strategic they were expected to “include groups of upper tier authorities”. The terms ‘real functional economic areas’ and ‘natural economic geography’ were not defined. Given this and the fact that LEP approvals were made over a period of time and in some areas were the result of national and local political compromise, it is perhaps not surprising that the areas and popu-lation covered by approved LEPs varies considerably. The populations vary from 0.5 million in Cumbria to 7.8 million covered by the London LEP, with an average LEP population of around 1.5 million. Outside London the largest is South East LEP with a population of almost 4 million whilst at the other end of the scale, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly, Worcestershire, Marches, Oxfordshire and Tees valley as well as Cumbria, all have populations of under 700,000. Another issue is that of overlapping LEP boundaries. Across England 37 local authorities (11%) are covered by two LEPs with, in some areas, a significant degree of overlap.

7 No stone unturned in the pursuit of growth Lord Heseltine 31 October 2012


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The coverage of LEPs

2.9 In its response to Lord Heseltine’s Review and the recommendation that LEPs should review their boundaries, inter alia, to ensure they do not overlap, the Government took the view that the determination of LEP boundaries should rest with local partnerships and that boundary overlaps as with the varying scales of LEP areas reflect economic reality. However, the initial guidance to LEPs on Growth Deals published at the end of July 2013, made clear that Government approval for boundary changes would be needed9.

LEP structure, governance and accountability

2.10 The June 2010 letter from the Secretaries of State said the Government would normally expect LEP boards to have equal representation of business and local authority leaders, with a prominent business leader as chair. Governance struc-tures were not prescribed but it was made clear they would need to be suffi-ciently robust and ensure proper accountability for delivery by partnerships.

2.11 Lord Heseltine, in his report, underlined this point stating that “LEPs will need to demonstrate robust corporate governance, in particular fiscal probity and managing conflicts of interest”. He said LEPs would need to set out robust but simple governance arrangements, working in partnership with the relevant local authorities, and how those local partners would be accountable to their locality for the delivery of their plans.

9 Growth Deals Initial Guidance for Local Enterprise Partnerships HM Government July 2013

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2.12 The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine emphasised that LEPs will remain high-level, business-led strategic bodies, bringing together local leaders and businesses and must not become unwieldy bureaucracies. It said LEPs should strengthen their links with their constituent local authorities and look to their local authority members and other partners to deliver their Strategic Economic Plans and EU SIF strategies. It referred to councils, working closely with the LEPs they are part of, taking on increasing levels of accountability to voters on deter-mining economic development priorities, designing interventions, managing additional public money and delivering growth.

2.13 With their growing responsibilities and resources, the issue of LEP governance and accountability is increasingly significant. The Government’s initial guidance to LEPs on Growth Deals says that as part of the development of Strategic Economic Plans, LEPs need to consider whether partnerships have the right governance and decision-making arrangements. This key issue is explored later in this report.

The developing strategic role of LEPs

2.14 The June 2010 letter from the Secretaries of State emphasised the strategic role envisaged for LEPs. Subsequently, the Local Growth White Paper10 set out the prime function of LEPs as being to provide the clear vision and strategic leader-ship to drive sustainable private sector-led growth and job creation in their area. It said the Government would particularly encourage partnerships working on transport, housing and planning as part of an integrated approach to growth and infrastructure delivery.

2.15 The White Paper made clear that the responsibilities of the RDAs would not be handed over in their entirety to LEPs, with the Government deciding on a combination of national and local provision11. It listed some of the roles that LEPs might take on, including:

■ working with Government to set out key investment priorities, including transport infrastructure and supporting or coordinating project delivery;

■ coordinating proposals or bidding directly for the Regional Growth Fund;

■ supporting high growth businesses, for example through involvement in bringing together and supporting consortia to run new growth hubs;

■ strategic housing delivery, including pooling and aligning funding streams to support this;

■ working with local employers, Jobcentre Plus and learning providers to help local workless people into jobs;

■ coordinating approaches to leveraging funding from the private sector;

■ becoming involved in the delivery of other national priorities such as digital infrastructure.

2.16 Subsequently, Government announcements have added to LEP’s roles and responsibilities and have included:

■ the opportunity to bid for a further group of Enterprise Zones in addition to 21 new EZs in LEP areas announced in the 2011 Budget12;

■ approval of projects to tackle infrastructure investment constraints with a focus on housing and transport using the Growing Places Fund announced in November 2011;

■ a new strategic role in skills policy announced in the Chancellor’s 2012 Autumn Statement.

10 Local Growth Realising Every Place’s Potential HM Government October 2010

11 The Government decided that some RDA responsibilities e.g. inward invest-ment, innovation and access to finance would be led by Central Government.

12 The first round of Enterprise Zones was announced in the Budget to be based in the LEP areas of: Birmingham and Solihull, Sheffield City Region, Leeds City Region, Liverpool City Region, London, Greater Manchester, West of England, the Black Country, Derby and Nottingham, Tees Valley and the North East.

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13 The allocations to LEPs were made in February 2012 and were calculated using a formula based on population and employed earnings. There is a large varia-tion in the amount of GPF allocated to individual LEPs outside London ranging from £33 million for the South East LEP to less than £4.5 million for the Northamptonshire, Cumbria and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly LEPs.

2.17 In March 2013, the Government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s review confirmed LEPs strategic role, asking them to lead the development of strategic multi-year plans for local growth, consistent with national priorities. These would form the basis on which the Government negotiates a Growth Deal with every LEP including a share of a new Local Growth Fund to help them target their identi-fied growth priorities. As part of their Strategic Economic Plans, LEPs would have the responsibility for drawing up investment plans for European Structural and Investment Funds (EU SIF) in England for the period 2014-2020.

2.18 The Government’s initial guidance to LEPs on Growth Deals issued at the end of July 2013 set out a demanding timetable requiring LEPs to submit final EU SIF Strategies to Government by the end of January 2014 and final versions of Strategic Economic Plans by March 2014. For its part, Government has said it will provide feedback and agree LEP EU SIF Strategies in February 2014, complete its final assessment of Strategic Economic Plans by June 2014, with Local Growth Fund offers to be made and Growth Deal negotiations to be completed in July 2014, leading to Government and LEPs implementing Growth Deals from April 2015.

Government funding for LEPs

2.19 Early on, the Government made it clear that LEPs could not expect central funding. The Local Growth White Paper said “Local Enterprise Partnerships will be expected to fund their own day-to-day running costs and will also want to consider how they can obtain the best value for public money by leveraging in private sector investment”. Whilst LEPs would be able to submit bids to the Regional Growth Fund, the White Paper said they would not receive preferential treatment against bids from other private or public-private partnerships.

2.20 ADEPT and CEDOS have called consistently for Government funding to be provided. Gradually and incrementally the Government changed its position with a series of announcements on funding for LEPs:

■ January 2011 – LEP Capacity Fund: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) makes available a £4 million capacity fund over four years to help LEPs understand the issues facing businesses in their areas and to allow them to develop and prioritise action plans;

■ May 2011 – LEP Start-up Fund: BIS makes available £5 million in 2011-12 as a one-off fund to help LEPs put their core operational capacity in place. To be successful in bidding for the Fund, partnerships were asked to demonstrate, inter alia, how their activities would be put on a self-sustaining basis in the near future, and that they would not need further central government administrative funding;

■ November 2011 – Growing Places Fund: Government allocates a £500 million fund to enable LEPs to tackle immediate infrastructure investment constraints, with a focus on housing and transport, with local authorities to be the accountable bodies. The 2012 Budget extended the value of the fund by £270 million which included £70 million for the Greater London Authority. The emphasis was on using GPF to establish revolving funds to take forward a range of projects that can help boost economic growth13;

■ September 2012 – Core funding for LEPs: Government announces an interim £5 million funding package to be made available immediately for all LEPs to draw upon for the remainder of the 2012/13 financial year to be followed by up to £250,000 per LEP per year in 2013/14 and 2014/15, dependent on match funding from local partners.

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2.21 Since Lord Heseltine’s report in October 2012, a series of further funding announcements have been made:

■ December 2012 – Autumn Statement announces that Government will provide £10 million a year for capacity building within LEPs with each LEP to be asked to apply for up to £250,000 additional funding per year to support the development and delivery of their strategic plan;

■ December 2012 – Autumn Statement announces that Government will make available a new concessionary Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) rate to an infrastructure project nominated by each LEP (excluding London) with the total borrowing capped at £1.5 billion14;

■ February 2013 – Government announces a £59 million fund to complete key infrastructure projects in Enterprise Zones;

■ March 2013 – Announcement in the 2013 Budget that Government will create a Single Local Growth Fund of growth-related spending to be operational by April 2015, with funding allocated to LEPs on the basis of multi-year strategic plans;

■ March 2013 – In its response to Lord Heseltine’s review, Government announces that the large majority of the EU Growth Programme for England will be allocated to LEP areas;

■ June 2013 – Government informs LEPs of their provisional allocations of the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund for 2014-2020, which total over £5 billion;

■ July 2013 – Government announces that the Local Growth Fund for 2015/16 will be set at £2 billion nationally and indicates that the Fund will be worth at least £2 billion in every year of the next Parliament;

■ October 2013 – Government announces an extra £100 million to complete infrastructure projects in enterprise zones;

■ December 2013 – Defra announces provisional allocations of £177 million from the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development.

Increasing complexity of Sub National Economic Development

2.22 The issue of overlapping LEP boundaries has already been referred to but this is only one aspect of what is becoming an increasingly complex picture of sub national economic development both in terms of geography and administra-tive arrangements, in particular with announcements on City Deals and Local Transport Bodies. For local authorities, this growing complexity is illustrated in East Sussex, where part of the county area is covered by two LEPs and a prospective Wave 2 City Deal area.

2.23 City Deals – Soon after the designation of the first group of LEPs, the Government launched the first wave of City Deals in December 201115, with the aim of giving cities the powers and tools they need to drive local economic growth and unlocking projects or initiatives that will boost their economies. It was made clear that for cities to be given significant new powers and funding, they would need to demonstrate strong, visible and accountable leader-ship and effective decision-making structures. In July 2012, Deals had been concluded with the core city areas of: Greater Birmingham and Solihull, Bristol and the West of England, Greater Manchester, Leeds City Region, Liverpool City Region, Nottingham, Newcastle and Sheffield City Region, which taken together “provide a suite of new freedoms, powers and tools to help cities go for growth”16.

14 Budget 2013 announced that the PWLB project rate would be introduced from 1 November 2013.

15 Unlocking Growth in Cities Cabinet Office 8 December 2011

16 Unlocking Growth in Cities: City Deals Wave 1 Cabinet Office 5 July 2012

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2.24 In October 2012, the Government announced a second wave of City Deals in which 20 cities and their wider areas17 would be given the opportunity to bid for “radical new powers for growth”. It was made clear that it would involve a competitive process and that not all cities should expect to be awarded a Deal. At the time of the launch, it was stated that “The second wave of City Deals will be completed by November 2013”18. By the end of 2013, seven Wave 2 deals had been announced – Preston & Lancashire, Thames Valley Berkshire, Greater Ipswich, Southampton & Portsmouth, Black Country, Coventry & Warwickshire, Hull & Humber, Norwich, Tees Valley.

2.25 Local Transport Bodies – In September 2012, following a consultation, the Government announced a new system for the devolution of funding for local major transport schemes with the primary decision making bodies to be Local Transport Bodies (LTBs) - voluntary partnerships of local transport authorities, LEPs and possibly others. LTBs would have non-overlapping boundaries based broadly on the geography of LEPs and with membership open, as a minimum, to all the constituent local transport authorities within the LTB area, and to the primary LEP or LEPs upon whose geography the LTB is based.

2.26 In July 2013, the Department for Transport announced funding allocations for LTBs, which would form part of the Local Growth Fund. In most cases they were for four years - 2015/16 to 2018/19 at a level a third below the indicative numbers issued in January 2013. In four LEP areas, where the principle of ten-year funding had been agreed through City Deals, confirmed allocations were announced for six years at the annual level indicated in January 2013, together with an indicative funding allocation for a further four years. The Department stated that it would expect LEP areas that make a good case for further trans-port investment through their Strategic Economic Plans to receive additional funding from the competitive elements of the Local Growth Fund.

2.27 The National Audit Office (NAO) has raised concerns about a lack of coordina-tion within Government of its various local growth initiatives, each of which has its own governance arrangements involving several Departments. Whilst a Local Growth Cabinet Committee has now been established, the NAO reports that it has seen no evidence that Departments take a collective programme approach to investment decisions across the range of initiatives and that, as a consequence “local bodies have to coordinate a range of individual initiatives with different objectives, funding arrangements, timetables and reporting requirements”19.

2.28 More recently a step in this direction has been taken with the creation of a joint team involving officials from the Business, Innovation & Skills and Communities and Local Government Departments and the Cabinet Office but not as yet including the Department for Transport.

Challenges Ahead

2.29 It is clear that the local growth agenda is still developing. The announcement of the Local Growth Fund and local Growth Deals for every LEP mark the begin-ning of a new phase, which presents new challenges and opportunities for both local authorities and LEPs and for Government, which the National Audit Office has said has yet to prove that its new approach offers value for money.

17 Black Country, Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove, Coventry & Warwickshire, Greater Cambridge, Greater Norwich, Hull & the Humber, Ipswich, Leicester & Leicestershire, Milton Keynes, Oxford & Central Oxfordshire, Plymouth, Portsmouth & Southampton, Preston & Lancashire, Reading, Southend, Stoke & Staffordshire, Sunderland & the North East, Swindon & Wiltshire, and Tees Valley.

18 Bold Deals to set more Cities Free for Growth HM Treasury & Deputy Prime Ministers Office Press release 29 October 2012


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3. Progress in Establishing LEPs

3.1 The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s review confirmed its view that Local Enterprise Partnerships should remain high-level, business-led strategic bodies, bringing together local leaders and businesses and must not become unwieldy bureaucracies. It said LEPs should strengthen their links with their constituent local authorities and look to their local authority members and other partners to deliver their strategies for growth.

3.2 This chapter takes an overall look at the progress LEPs are making in particular in terms of developing their structures and operational capacity; achieving effective business engagement; and addressing the increasingly important issues of governance and accountability. In doing so it is important to recog-nise that there is bound to be some variation across the country in particular because:

■ not all LEPs were established at the same time - the first group was approved in October 2010 and the most recent over a year later;

■ some LEPs developed from previously existing sub-regional partnerships e.g. Multi Area Agreements with support and delivery mechanisms already in place, whilst others had to start from scratch;

■ there is considerable variation in LEPs by area, population and the extent to which they cross administrative boundaries, which has affected the time required to get new partnerships operational.

3.3 Moreover, it always takes time to get new structures up and running and for LEPs this has been accentuated by the time frame and incremental way in which Government decisions on their role, function and funding have been made. Having regard to this, LEPs across the country have made considerable progress in establishing strong business-led boards; developing their capacity; and putting in place growth plans.

LEP Boards

3.4 LEPs throughout the country have established business-led boards, including refreshing membership where appropriate. The majority have boards of between 12 and 13 members. Significantly the largest is the South East LEP, which had been operating with a board of 44. Its former board ‘executive group’ has, with additions, become a new board of 27 – still larger than the boards of all other LEPs. At the other end of the scale, the Worcestershire LEP operates with a tightly drawn board of nine.

3.5 The original letter from the Communities and Business Secretaries said that for LEPs to be effective it would be vital for business and civic leaders work together and that they believed that “this would normally mean an equal representation on the board of these partnerships and that a prominent business leader should chair the board”20. This was echoed in the Local Growth White Paper, which said that Government would normally expect to see business representatives form half the board.

3.6 With the exception of the London Enterprise Panel (the LEP for Greater London), which is chaired by the Mayor of London, all other LEPs have a prominent business chair. However, the balance between business and local authority members of LEP boards varies considerably. Outside London, only six have


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equal representation between business and local authority representatives: Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham & Nottinghamshire (D2N2), Leeds City Region, South East and Buckinghamshire Thames Valley, with Stoke & Staffordshire having one more local authority than business board member. By contrast some, for example Humber, Swindon & Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, have boards strongly weighted in favour of business representatives. In addition, most LEPs have higher/further education board members and some have 3rd sector representatives.

Supporting structures

3.7 In addition to their main boards, many LEPs have set up a range of other struc-tures to develop and implement their strategies. The main types are:

■ overall advisory groups – stakeholder forums/groups (as in Humber and West of England); business groups (as in Heart of the South West, West of England, Humber and Worcestershire);

■ key issues groups linked to LEP objectives and priorities (e.g. Cheshire & Warrington, Enterprise M3, Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough, South East Midlands, Tees Valley, Thames Valley Berkshire, West of England);

■ groups focusing on key local sectors (e.g. D2N2, New Anglia, Sheffield City Region, West of England, Greater Lincolnshire);

■ executive/implementation groups (e.g. Humber’s Decision-making Boards, Enterprise M3’s Implementation Group, Heart of the South West’s Executive Group, South East LEP’s Executive Group).

3.8 Amongst other types of supporting structures, examples include Marches’ Hereford Enterprise Zone Board and Coast to Capital with its committee struc-ture and its economic sub-area partnerships. Some overall examples are given in the case studies that follow.

CASE STUDY

Enterprise M3 LEP

The Enterprise M3 Board is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the LEP, establishing targets and priorities and monitoring progress. In doing this it seeks the views of the Implementation Group, Action Group chairs and the wider business community and stakeholders.

The Implementation Group, which sits below the Board, is made up of key delivery partners and the chairs of the LEP Action Groups and has a focus on delivery. In this role it appraises the priorities and actions identified by the Action Groups. It identifies any cross-sector issues and assesses whether the required background information to address these issues is readily available. The Implementation Group also provides the forum for the interaction between the aims of the LEP and the other planning processes that impact on enterprise and growth. This is one of the reasons why it is considered important for the Implementation Group to have a good mix of private and public sector members.

The Action Groups cover: enterprise support, land & property, rural economy & broadband, skills & employability, transport, housing. They identify key issues and priorities and assess the actions required to deliver the priorities and targets set by the Board. Targets are agreed between the LEP chair and each Action Group chair. The Action Groups provide the interface between the individual businesses and local authorities throughout the LEP area.

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CASE STUDY

Humber LEP

The LEP Board is the main governing body for the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership and meets every month, except August.

The LEP Forum exists to involve local businesses and stakeholders in the LEP’s plans and activities. It holds open events to give business people opportunities to find out about the LEP’s activities and ask questions, as well as workshops and consultations on the LEP’s plans. The Forum works closely with existing local business networks to develop as a network of networks and give membership organisations the opportunity to represent their members’ views. Membership of the LEP Forum is free and open to all.

The LEP board is supported by the Advisory Board which meets bi-monthly and is made up of representatives of key local organisations, as well as several individual business people. The Advisory Board plays a crucial role as a ‘sounding board’ for the LEP Board, in addition to its responsibility for directing the LEP Forum’s work.

There are also the following four decision making boards:

● the Investment Board, which meets regularly to manage the allocation of business support funding;

● the Employment and Skills Board, which is responsible for developing and delivering an employment and skills strategy for the Humber in partnership with education providers;

● the Marketing Board, which has been established to develop and implement a consolidated Humber marketing and international trade plan;

● the SME Support Committee, which is leading work to simplify access to business support for local businesses.

CASE STUDY

The Marches LEP

The Marches LEP operates a structure developed in the interests of minimising bureaucracy, cost and duplication and achieving speedy decision making and delivery.

The LEP Board makes decisions via a ‘single conversation’ on the delivery of the Strategic Economic Plan, including project prioritisation and allocation of funding. The Board of eleven is led by a prominent local businessman and includes the Leaders of the three local authorities of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin as well as the chairs of the three Area Business Boards (which bring a 60-strong business constituency to the table). Also on the Board are the two Vice-Chancellors of the Universities and co-opted Business Champions.

The LEP is run through a LEP Secretariat, a LEP Executive Group and LEP Sub-Groups which report into the LEP Executive Group. These are the LEP Funding Forum, the Marches Local Transport Body, the Marches Skills Board and the Marches Housing and Planning Partnership.

Also working on behalf of the Marches LEP Board is a subsidiary board for the management of the Enterprise Zone in Herefordshire.

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CASE STUDY

Tees Valley Unlimited LEP (TVU)

The operating model is based on existing strong partnership working arrangements and has been revised to align with the TVU priorities & plan.

The Leadership Board, supported by six specialist groups, pursues the ultimate aim of driving forward economic growth. Each of the groups is chaired by a Leadership Board member and is responsible for driving specific elements of the Business Plan:

● Economic Development Group;

● Employment, Learning & Skills Group;

● Place Group;

● Transport & Infrastructure Group;

● Communications Panel;

● Investment Panel.

Further groups support and manage the operation of the partnership:

● Local Authority Chief Executives;

● Private Sector Representative Panel;

● TVU Management Group;

● Leaders & Mayors.

CASE STUDY

Coast to Capital LEP

The Coast to Capital LEP has board of 18 (in addition to the chair, there are ten business representatives, five local authority leaders, one representative each from higher and further education, and one ex-officio - the Chief Executive), which is responsible for accountability, reporting and information, strategic direction, financial oversight and directing the activities of the partnership.

The LEP has a committee structure composed of:

● International advisory committee;

● Enterprise committee;

● Finance committee;

● Infrastructure committee;

● Skills committee;

● Executive committee;

● Audit committee.

In addition there are five local sub-area partnerships, which work closely with the LEP, covering: Brighton Hove & Lewes, Coastal West Sussex, Croydon, Gatwick Diamond and Rural West Sussex. They are represented in the governance of Coast to Capital through the LEP Forum, held every six months, to provide an opportunity for the LEP to consult widely with public, private and third sector organisations and businesses. In addition individual board members have been allocated liaison roles for each area partnership.

The four upper tier and unitary authorities are the local government significant partners for Coast to Capital. They are all represented on the Coast to Capital Board. The twelve District and Borough Councils are represented through the area partnerships and collectively through a board member on the LEP.

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3.9 The supporting structures have been set up to meet the needs and circum-stances of individual LEPs to enable them to drive forward local growth. Whilst some have been deliberately set up on a task and finish basis, others are seen as ongoing.

RECOMMENDATION LEPs will need to keep their structures under review to ensure they remain fit for purpose and meet the requirement of being high level strategic bodies and not become unwieldy bureaucracies.

Legal structures

3.10 The Local Growth White Paper said that whilst Government did not intend to define LEPs in legislation, their governance structures would need to be suffi-ciently robust and clear to ensure proper accountability for delivery. It went on to say: “Partnerships will differ across the country in both form and functions in order to best meet local circumstances and opportunities. A partnership may need legal personality or a specified accountable body in some circumstances, such as if it wished to own assets or contract to deliver certain functions. The constitution and legal status of each partnership will be a matter for the part-ners, informed by the activities that they wish to pursue”21.

3.11 Many LEPs continue to be unincorporated partnerships. The following have been registered as companies limited by guarantee22:

■ Black Country

■ Cheshire & Warrington

■ Coast to Capital

■ Cornwall & Isles of Scilly LEP

■ Coventry & Warwickshire

■ Gloucestershire

■ Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough

■ Humber

■ Liverpool City Region

■ New Anglia

■ Northamptonshire

■ Sheffield City Region

■ Solent

■ South East Midlands

■ Thames Valley Berkshire

■ Greater Birmingham And Solihull

■ West of England

3.12 The Lancashire Enterprise Partnership Limited is a company wholly owned by Lancashire County Council. As such, for the purposes of Part V of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, the company is under the control of Lancashire County Council23.

21 Local growth: realising Every Place’s Potential HM Government October 2010

22 Two using pre-existing companies as vehicles: Black Country & Liverpool City Region

23 In providing the information, Lancashire County Council indicates the caveat that Part 12 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 has now partially repealed and replaced Part 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989.

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Operational capacity

3.13 The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s review published in March 2013 recognised that the period to 2015 will be a critical one for LEPs to get them-selves ready to take on new roles. In September/December 2012 it had made a series of funding announcements with an initial £5 million package followed by £250,000 p.a. per LEP for 2013/14 and 2014/15 for the development of their Strategic Plans and EU SI strategies; and in addition £250,000 p.a. to support core capacity to be matched by local contributions.

3.14 The 2013 survey for this project indicates that in the areas for which responses were received, core funding has been used mainly to increase LEP staff capacity. In addition, consultancy support has been used, for example, to assist in the development of Strategic Economic Plans and EU Structural and Investment Fund Strategies, transport scheme prioritisation and Growing Places Fund scheme prioritisation. Other uses of capacity funding referred to include raising the LEP profile, achieving the evidence base to support strategy development, business engagement and helping to deliver existing programmes e.g. those funded by the Growing Places and Regional Growth Funds.

3.15 Most of the survey respondents anticipate capacity funding continuing in a similar way in 2014/15 with, as one emphasised, the added complication of overseeing the EU Structural & Investment Fund Strategy without any guarantee of technical assistance from the managing authorities.

3.16 The survey response shows that local match funding, both in cash and in kind, has been almost exclusively provided by the local authorities, with one example so far of a cash contribution by a local university and examples of investment by local Chambers of Commerce in business events. For 2014/15 it is likely that the local authorities will continue to be expected to find the local match.

3.17 For the most part private sector contributions are likely to continue to be in kind rather than making direct financial contributions. However, Liverpool City Region LEP secures income from business membership, whilst Thames Valley Berkshire LEP is considering asking business in the area to make annual contributions and Dorset LEP is reported to be considering attempting to secure private sector contributions. The Humber LEP is receiving private sector contributions to its marketing programme through a relationship with ‘The Bondholders’ – a private sector led marketing organisation funded by its private sector members which is now recruiting and operating Humber–wide.

Staffing of LEPs

3.18 There is considerable variation in staff numbers and the extent to which staff support is provided by LEPs directly (albeit usually with a local authority being the employer) or is made available by partner organisations also varies.

3.19 With the advent of core funding a number of LEPs have boosted their staffing complements24. In terms of total staff numbers, whilst comparison is not always easy, an assessment indicates there are three broad groups:

■ 15 or more staff (including Lancashire, Tees Valley, Leeds City Region, Northamptonshire);

■ 5-12 staff (including Leicester/Leicestershire, North East, Hertfordshire, Humber, New Anglia, South East Midlands, York, North Yorkshire & East Riding, Sheffield City Region, Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough, Coast to Capital, D2N2, Thames Valley Berkshire);

■ Less than 5 (including Cheshire & Warrington, Worcestershire, Greater Lincolnshire, Heart of the South West, Swindon & Wiltshire, The Marches).

24 Including second-ments in some cases.

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3.20 To an extent, the variation depends on the degree of LEP maturity, with some having developed from existing organisations; and also on the roles taken on by the individual LEPs. For example Tees Valley Unlimited LEP has built on the foundations of long-standing partnership working in the area and has continued to have a strong delivery as well as a strategic function. Similarly the Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership (NEP) grew out of the sub-regional body to which Northamptonshire County Council outsourced economic development delivery a number of years ago and which continues to have a significant service delivery as well as a strategic function. Liverpool City Region LEP developed from the Mersey Partnership, which had been undertaking City Region scale economic development activity for over 20 years, although its service delivery activities have reduced.

CASE STUDY

Liverpool City Region

LEP developed from previous partnership arrangementsLiverpool City Region is an example of a LEP being formed from existing partnership arrangements. The City Region has had a private sector membership body – the Mersey Partnership - undertaking City Region scale economic development activity for over 20 years. It had also acted as the sub-regional partner of the RDA – the North West Development Agency. The Mersey Partnership was adopted by partners in the City Region to become the LEP in March 2012 and was re-incorporated with a new Board including the political leaders of all six Local Authorities.

As a membership body, it receives a financial contribution from private sector members resulting from its long-standing relationship with key businesses in the area. The resources provide support to its core work, which is to represent the private sector and undertake initiatives to grow the economy, particularly in a number of key sectors. Each local authority and some other public sector members of the LEP also make financial contributions.

The model sustains around twelve core staff with the main focus being on the promotion of key sectors. The LEP also delivers projects/services, requiring an associated staffing resource, which fluctuates according to the projects being delivered. The overall staffing level has reduced, with fewer services now being delivered directly and with some functions e.g. conference arrangements having been transferred to other public bodies as more effective delivery is being sought at a City Region scale. The City Region is moving to a Combined Authority approach with the LEP integrally involved and likely to lead on economy development co-ordination but not on delivery.

3.21 More generally across LEPs there is the emergence of specialist staff roles. Apart from lead LEP officers (with an increasing number of Chief Executives or equivalent), roles that are most frequently found include: strategy, employ-ment & skills, enterprise zones, business support, inward investment, research & information, EU policy & programmes, infrastructure and communications, marketing & engagement. As to who provides the staff, this varies ranging from staffing being provided by the LEP itself to provision by the local authority partners in some cases with others having a mixture of the two including secondments. In Buckinghamshire Thames Valley, officer support is provided by Buckinghamshire Business First, an organisation funded by local authorities (primarily Buckinghamshire County Council), private sector donations & revenue generation for services.

3.22 Despite the growth of LEP staff numbers in many areas, there continues to be a considerable requirement for the support of local authority staff, a point that will be covered in more detail in the next chapter.

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Business engagement

3.23 The research including the surveys undertaken for this second report of the CEDOS/ADEPT project indicates that business representatives, especially the private sector board members, are making a significant contribution of time and expertise as the following extracts from the survey response indicate:

■ “Private/business sector input to the work of the Dorset LEP board is considerable in terms of time contributed, particularly by senior/lead board members”;

■ “Private sector representatives are putting significant time into Greater Lincolnshire LEP’s sector plans and leading partnerships of businesses to come up with plans”;

■ “The private sector currently makes a significant contribution to the work of the Stoke & Staffordshire LEP; representatives from business have a stra-tegic leadership role on the LEP board and lead the sub-groups and various work streams”;

■ “There is a major in-kind resource commitment from the private sector in terms of senior executive time to New Anglia LEP board meetings”.

3.24 Achieving effective business engagement is, however, wider than the contri-bution being made by private sector members of LEP boards and is about engaging and sustaining the involvement of local business communities as a whole. As the 2010 Local Growth White Paper said “sustained business engage-ment is essential in the long term if partnerships are to realise the economic potential of the area”25 The initial Growth Deal Guidance goes further and indi-cates that Government expects local authorities and LEPs to be able to demon-strate arrangements for delivering Strategic Economic Plans that build a strong relationship with the business community and an ability to harness significantly greater private sector input, expertise and resources26.

3.25 In this context, examples of steps being taken by LEPs to secure the involvement and input of the wider business community include:

■ establishing business advisory groups e.g. Worcestershire LEP Business Board, Heart of the South West Business Forum, West of England’s Business Advisory Group, and the Marches, where local Business Boards in each of the three local authority areas are being used;

■ Business engagement events, of which some current examples are Greater Lincolnshire and Tees Valley business summits, New Anglia’s business conferences and Dorset’s LEP conference;

■ establishing links with business organisations e.g. Chambers of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses, Institute of Directors and the CBI;

■ LEP business membership.

Involvement of business organisations

3.26 The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine and its initial Growth Deals Guidance highlight the need for LEPs to build relationships with the business community as a whole. The report of the Business Innovation & Skills Select Committee’s Inquiry into LEPs published in April 2013 focused on LEP Board representations and said that from the evidence it had received, it had heard that LEPs can struggle to find representatives from local businesses particu-larly SMEs. To achieve this it said that Chambers of Commerce, small business organisations and trade associations could be actively targeted for representa-tion on LEP boards.

25 Local Growth Realising Every Place’s Potential HM Government 28 October 2010

26Growth Deals Initial Guidance for Local Enterprise Partnerships HM Government July 2013

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3.27 Involvement of local business organisations is clearly important but analysis of LEP board membership across the country reveals comparatively few LEPs where local business organisations as such are represented on main LEP boards. However, examples of their involvement in LEPs and their activities include:

■ Buckinghamshire Thames Valley, where the secretariat is provided by local business organisation Buckinghamshire Business First;

■ Greater Lincolnshire, which has a Federation of Small Businesses representa-tive on the board;

■ Stoke on Trent & Staffordshire, where the chambers of commerce are providing a series of business events for the LEP;

■ D2N2, where the Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce hosts the LEP secretariat.

LEP business membership

3.28 So far a small number of LEPs have introduced business membership, with different approaches:

■ Solent LEP, has set itself up as a company limited by guarantee open to member companies27 only, with a voting system that requires the private sector LEP board members to be voted for from within the membership;

■ Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP’s board is drawn from the board of Buckinghamshire Business First, a county business membership organisa-tion with over 3600 members;

■ Liverpool City Region LEP has over 450 members in three categories (corpo-rate, tourism and conference), with membership providing exclusive access to benefits and opportunities for an annual subscription.

CASE STUDY

Buckinghamshire Thames Valley

Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP has a close relationship with Buckinghamshire Business First (BBF) a county business membership organisation, led by a private sector board. The LEP’s private sector board members are drawn from the board of BBF, which is also contracted to provide the LEP secretariat. Over 3600 businesses are members of BBF, representing more than a quarter of the county’s private sector workforce. BBF has strong links and working relationships with the Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors in the county.

Through its links to BBF, the LEP has direct access to a strong collective input from businesses throughout the county.

Buckinghamshire County Council is the main funder of BBF through an agreement to deliver economic development services for the Council, for which it is making a grant of approximately £500,000 p.a. over three years. In addition three of BBF’s staff are seconded from the County Council, which also makes available staff with specific skills as required, notably in planning, transport and education, with further ad hoc support offered by district council officers.

BBF has also received substantial contributions from private sector members and runs a number of programmes and offers economic consultancy services to the private sector, bringing in additional revenue.

27 Business are eligible to join the Solent LEP if they are currently undertaking any professional, business or other commercial activity with a view to profit in the Solent and are prepared to field a senior repre-sentative for consid-eration to become a Solent LEP Director Solent LEP Business information & application pack April 2013

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Ongoing need to sustain the engagement of the business community

3.29 Business engagement is seen as a real achievement of LEPs. However, whilst larger businesses are more likely to be engaged with LEPs, small and micro businesses are much less likely to be involved or to have even heard of LEPs. Retaining business engagement is an issue especially in areas with compara-tively few large businesses. Without demonstrable achievements it could wane after a period of initial enthusiasm has passed.

RECOMMENDATION LEPs must continue to develop an in-depth understanding of local business needs and develop strategies to engage and sustain the involvement of their local business communities as a whole to achieve greater private sector input, expertise and resources.

Governance & accountability

3.30 With the increasing responsibilities being given to LEPs and the increasing amounts of public money being placed at their disposal, many areas are reviewing their governance and accountability and the working arrangements between LEPs and their constituent local authorities in the context of the Government’s initial guidance on local Growth Deals, which says - “decisions on strategic issues and major investment projects will be made by LEPs and their local authority members and delivered or commissioned by local authorities”28

3.31 The Growth Deals guidance states that governance must be robust, proportionate and transparent, drawing on the recommendations in the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) report on decentralisation and accountability29. This makes the point that Departmental accounting officers are responsible for assuring Parliament that local spending financed by government grants meets high standards, including delivering value for money and says that “to do this there must be a robust local accountability system in place, with local Section 151 officers30 and democratically elected councillors responsible for ensuring that public money is managed with propriety and regularity and value for money”.

3.32 Democratic accountability is, however, not just a matter of ensuring that public money is spent with due propriety. More fundamentally it is about making the key decisions on where and on what public money is spent on. Just as Parliament is responsible for making decisions at national level, democratic accountability is essential at the local level. This underlines the points made in ADEPT’s response to the Heseltine review that “a more integrated relationship between local authorities and LEPs is required, with strategic local authorities acting as accountable bodies and advising and working jointly with the LEPs in establishing policy, commissioning activity and scrutinising progress of LEP strategic plans for local growth” and that “a robust approach to accountability is especially important for infrastructure investment and other activities where the spending of public money is involved”31.

28 Growth Deals Initial Guidance for Local Enterprise Partnerships HM Government July 2013

29 Accountability: Adapting to decentralisation DCLG September 2011

30 Under Section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972: Every local authority shall make arrangements for the proper administra-tion of their financial affairs and shall secure that one of their officers (known as the section 151 officer or chief finance officer) has responsibility for the administration of those affairs.

31 Devolving Economic Powers to achieve Local Growth ADEPT February 2013

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3.33 Clearly a balance has to be achieved to retain the ability of LEPs to be able to act in an agile and focused way whilst at the same time providing for accountability for the decision-making and disbursement of public funds. The fact is that even though they have local authority elected members on their boards, LEPs lack a specific democratic mandate. As CEDOS and ADEPT have pointed out “this necessarily limits how far they should or may wish to take determinative deci-sions on key issues and therefore how effective they can be”32. This is echoed in research by the Centre for Urban & Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University (CURDS) which revealed that “many LEPs were uneasy and seeking advice on appropriate governance arrangements to address these concerns and assuage the anxieties of private sector board members”33.

3.34 This underlines the importance of LEP boards having a proper balance between private sector and local authority members and the need to develop forms of governance and accountability, in which democratically elected local authori-ties are an essential foundation but which at the same time gives the private sector a real say in making and implementing key decisions to drive forward local economic growth. This issue, with examples of approaches being taken in different areas is explored further in Chapter six: LEPs - Growth Deals and the Local Growth Fund – The next phase in LEP development.

RECOMMENDATION There is a need to develop forms of governance and accountability for LEPs in which democratically elected local authorities are an essential foundation and which give businesses a real say in making decisions to drive forward local economic growth.

32 Evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth, Local Enterprise Partnerships & Enterprise Zones Inquiry: Rising to the challenge – how LEPs can deliver local growth strategies CEDOS/ADEPT July 2013

33 The State of the LEPs Professor Andy Pike CURDS Blog 19 March 2013

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4. The Crucial Role of Local Authorities

4.1 At the outset, Local Enterprise Partnerships were seen as joint local authority-business bodies34. In the report on Local Enterprise Partnerships by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth the point was made that “active local authority involvement was crucial both strategically and democratically”35. As this joint ADEPT/CEDOS research project has shown, the practical involvement and support of local authorities, especially the strategic city, unitary and county authorities, has been critical at all stages in the development of LEPs:

■ consulting widely, identifying key business people, bringing partners together and facilitating formation of LEP boards;

■ providing political and senior officer representation on boards;

■ leading on the preparation of bids for LEP approval and for Government funding opportunities;

■ providing core financial support and committing significant amounts of staff time to the development and operation of LEPs;

■ taking on specific roles e.g. acting as accountable bodies, providing secre-tariat support, providing specialist advice;

■ making things happen to support local economic development through project initiation, development and management.

4.2 This is illustrated by the following case study:

CASE STUDY

Lincolnshire County Council

Crucial role in the development of the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise PartnershipThe Council has played a crucial role at several key points in the life of the LEP.

Formation – At its formation, the Leader of Lincolnshire County Council ruled himself out as a potential board member because he wanted to ensure that the LEP was properly private sector-led and rooted in private, not public, sector practices. He then set about inviting private sector business people who reflected the key sectors represented in Lincolnshire. He had also consulted widely with the private sector during the bid phase and had identified which public sector organisations business people would most want to see represented. The response had been for the University, the NHS, the County Council and, uniquely, the Environment Agency. Having gathered board members, the Leader took no further part in the LEP’s formation who appointed from within those members a chair and vice-chair.

Secretariat – The County Council has provided the secretariat function at no cost to the LEP because it wanted it to have some capacity from the outset. It has deliberately allowed the council officers involved to act independently for the LEP. This has been appreciated by board members and the two unitary councils which joined the LEP after it had been approved. They have valued the way in which the secretariat acts in the interests of the LEP. There are concerns that this may not be sustainable in the longer term as more demands are placed on the LEP. At some point the Government will need to provide some ongoing and reliable financial support.

[ctd.]

34 The Coalition: Our Programme for Government HM Government 20 May 2010

35 Where next for LEPs ? Report of an Inquiry of the Effectiveness to Date of Local Enterprise Partnerships All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth Local Enterprise Partnerships & Enterprise Zones September 2012

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Lincolnshire County Council [ctd.]

Accountable Body – The County Council agreed to act as an accountable body because the LEP is not incorporated. Again this has been welcomed by private sector board members who can act freely with minimum risk to their other business interests. The County Council has previous experience of undertaking this function and has the financial capacity to cope with the relatively small sums of money presently allocated to the LEP.

Working Practices – Early on, it was agreed that the LEP would channel the delivery of its aims through existing mechanisms and partnerships rather than risk duplication or re-creation of proven systems and processes. This has resulted in increased levels of partnership working between all the local authorities involved in the LEP.

Financial support to LEP operating costs

4.3 The surveys of CEDOS and ADEPT members for this project indicate the very substantial contribution local authorities are making to the operating costs of LEPs including being the prime source of the local match for government core funding. Examples are:

■ New Anglia LEP – where Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils are providing £75,000 each with the 14 Districts collectively providing a further £98,000 – making the total local authority contribution £248,000;

■ Cornwall & Isles of Scilly LEP – where Cornwall Council is providing a financial contribution of £150,000 in 2013-14 in addition to providing considerable staff support;

■ Hampshire County Council is providing £50,000 p.a. to the Solent LEP and £10,000 to the Enterprise M3 LEP in addition to significant support in terms of staff resources;

■ Northamptonshire LEP – where Northamptonshire County Council is providing £250,000 to match core funding from Government;

■ Coast to Capital LEP – where West Sussex County Council is contributing about £150,000 for 2013/14, with the other upper tier local authorities also contributing.

4.4 However, as with the position in Hampshire, the fact is that the real financial contribution has to be looked at in terms not only of the direct financial contri-butions to LEP running costs but also of the economic development and other specialist staff costs, the costs of the accountable body and other roles the local authorities are taking on and the contributions authorities are making to deliv-ering the activities of LEP plans.

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Local authority economic development staff support

4.5 Despite the growth in the direct staffing capacity of LEPs, the 2013 member survey indicates a continuing significant staff contribution by local authori-ties, including at Director level, particularly from economic development and related areas such as transport, planning, employment and skills. Moreover the local authorities are key partners in delivering LEP initiatives, such as Enterprise Zones, superfast broadband rollout and business support. Indeed, across the country, many member authorities are indicating that the staff time involved in LEP and LEP-related issues has increased particularly on the development of Strategic Economic Plans and EU Structural & Investment Fund Strategies, with as one member said– “it’s LEP, LEP, LEP!!” Some examples are:

■ Cambridgeshire County Council – “considerable staff time has been expended on the production of the LEP EU SIF strategy and Strategic Economic Plan”;

■ Central Bedfordshire Council – “significant input into the development of the infrastructure plan, European Investment Strategy and emerging SEP, including reviewing evidence bases, commissioning external consultants and directly developing strategy/policy”;

■ Hampshire County Council – “significant contributions of staff including the Council’s Assistant Director for Economic Development spending signifi-cant time assisting Solent LEP develop its inward investment model and Phase 1 of the Solent Enterprise Zone”;

■ Hull City Council – “Staff and time involved in LEP-related policy develop-ment and implementation activities is increasing e.g. EU Structural and Investment Funds Strategy, Enterprise Zone development, Strategic Economic Plan Development, City Deal development”.

4.6 It is difficult to give an overall assessment of staff time and numbers involved on core economic development work on LEP and LEP-related activity but as examples Hull City Council estimates that up to 20 staff are involved in this work, whilst Cornwall Council estimates the value of its staff support time at £325,000 p.a. in addition to the cash contribution of £150,000. Local authority staff support also involves the provision of specialist support in connection with providing accountable body and other central services.

Accountable bodies & other services

4.7 With the increased level of funding being made available to LEPs, local authori-ties across the country have taken on the role of being accountable bodies for LEPs as a whole or for individual strands of funding. Indeed for funding streams such as the Growing Places Fund this is a Government requirement. Specialist support includes finance, accounting, audit, legal and procurement. Moreover, the demands on local authorities will increase when, for example, the Local Growth Fund is introduced. Other specific roles that have been taken on by local authorities include: providing LEP secretariats, office and associated admin support, overseeing communications and events, and employing LEP staff and providing HR support.

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Overall local authority contributions & financial input

4.8 As with economic development staff numbers and time, it is not possible to give an estimate of the overall monetary value of the input local authorities are making to Local Enterprise Partnerships. However, to give some individual examples: Essex County Council, in addition to its annual cash contribution to the South East LEP, has estimated that the costs of time spent by economic development professionals, meeting the accountable body responsibilities and the office and admin costs of hosting the LEP team come to over £200,000 p.a. and that this is likely to be a conservative estimate. Hull City Council estimates that it is providing circa £200,000 in support to the LEP in staff time as account-able body, policy and delivery input and its annual cash contribution. This issue is explored further through examples in the case studies that follow.

CASE STUDY

Tees Valley Authorities

The five Tees Valley local authorities provide £2 million p.a. to the Tees Valley Unlimited LEP.

They provide the budget and ongoing support through officer time dedicated to key groups, activities and aspects of local delivery from transport schemes and business interaction to school engagement and marketing and communications. Local authorities are key partners in delivering LEP initiatives, such as Enterprise Zones, superfast broadband rollout and business support.

TVU has dedicated advisory groups on which the five local authorities are represented, as well as the TVU Management Group (comprised of the Directors of Place), Tees Valley Investment Panel and the Tees Valley Chief Executives Group, which take decisions and make recommendations to the TVU Leadership Board. This includes a leading role in driving forward work on the EU Structural & Investment Fund Strategy and the Strategic Economic Plan.

The local authorities are also involved in ad hoc task and finish groups, which currently include superfast broadband and social inclusion.

CASE STUDY

Oxfordshire LEP

Oxfordshire LEP has recently appointed a Chief Executive, however a significant number of Oxfordshire County Council staff support LEP activities and provide the LEP secretariat and most of its operational capacity. This alone equates to a cash equivalent of more than £650,000

This support includes direct involvement in the delivery of inward investment services for the LEP while there is additional funding for broadband, roads infrastructure and skills activities – work experience, apprenticeships and employer engagement. The County Council estimates that this brings the total monetary value of its ‘in kind’ staffing contribution to the LEP to over £1.5 million.

In addition the Oxfordshire District Councils provide secretariat support to the Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Partnership that leads on infrastructure and planning issues and whose work overlaps with that of the LEP. They also provide business support and advice services and support to tourism.

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CASE STUDY

Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership

Northamptonshire County Council provides funding of around £2 million p.a. through its County Prosperity Fund to the Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership (NEP). This covers the local match for Government core funding and also grant funding for specific joint initiatives which are delivered by NEP including £300,000 for INV-ENT, the Innovation and Enterprise Fund which offers a business rate rebate of up to £20,000 for ambitious and growing SME’s and £100,000 for LOCATE, an inward investment incentive of up to £20,000 for companies relocating to the county. The County Council has a grant funding agreement with NEP and a separate funding agreement which covers the council’s accountable body function for the Growing Places Fund and other funding from Government.

In addition County Council staff support for NEP includes:

● Chief Executive/Director representation at Board meetings;

● Director/Head of Development, Infrastructure & Funding representation at technical & performance meetings & meetings with BIS;

● Head of Development, Infrastructure & Funding (1 day a week)/ Project Manager (2 days a week)/ Project officer (3 days a week) support through regular meetings, accountable body functions (finance, audit, legal), and initiative development work;

● legal and finance advice;

● involvement in initiatives, including the INV-ENT steering group responsible for sifting applications, completing due diligence, determining applications, providing contracts and monitoring;

● library staff involved in delivering business start-up support through the Enterprise Hubs.

Delivering and enabling LEP Actions and initiatives

4.9 As the Oxfordshire case study illustrates, in addition to the key role in funding and providing operational capacity and central services for LEPs, the local authority role is crucial in delivering LEP Strategic Plans, particularly for the funding and delivery of major infrastructure schemes and business growth initiatives. This is an area where Government has acknowledged local authori-ties will continue to be centre-stage. In its response to the Heseltine Review, it said LEPs should “look to their local authority members to deliver the LEP strategy and EU SI Funds investment strategies”36.

36 Government’s response to the Heseltine Review HMT/BIS March 2013

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4.10 Some other current examples identified by the ADEPT/CEDOS member survey are shown in the following case studies.

CASE STUDY

Cambridgeshire County Council

Council invests in new Cambridge Science Park station to help drive economic growth As a major contribution to deliver the Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough LEP Growth Plan, Cambridgeshire County Council will invest £30 million in Cambridge Science Park Station, a new railway station in the north of Cambridge, close to the Science Park, St John’s Innovation Centre and Cambridge Business Park.

The station will provide a boost for the local economy, and will kick start development and the creation of jobs by improving accessibility and journey times. The scheme will be delivered by the County Council together with Network Rail and then operated by Network Rail and the train companies.

To fund the new station, the County Council has decided to borrow the money to invest to drive the scheme forward and enable Cambridgeshire to benefit from improved accessibility and economic growth. The train companies will repay the Council through their contracts to run the trains enabling it to recover the money invested.

CASE STUDY

Dorset LEP

Dorset Councils invest over £10 million to bring superfast broadband to thousands more homes and businessesOne of the Dorset LEP’s key priorities is to achieve a well-connected Dorset, particularly through the provision of high speed broadband. To drive this forward throughout the county, Dorset County Council and BT have agreed a £31.75 million deal that will see high-speed fibre optic broadband become available to 97% of premises in the county within three and a half years.

The Superfast Dorset project builds on BT’s commercial roll-out of fibre optic broadband and will transform broadband speeds across the county and its rural areas. Dorset County Council and the county’s district and borough councils are contributing £9.44 million to match the Government’s Broadband Delivery UK contribution and unlock a £12.87 million investment by BT to meet the overall cost of deployment in ‘non-commercial’ areas. The Dorset councils have invested a further £1.3 million to make sure the benefits of the network are maximised.

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CASE STUDY

Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership

Proactive role of County Council enables GPF schemes to progressNorthamptonshire County Council applied for the funding for three schemes contracted under the Northamptonshire GPF Infrastructure Fund and committed to pay it back to the Fund within a prescribed period from future funding (primarily s106) generated by the future housing and other development that will be unlocked:

● A45/A5 Junction improvements (£950,000) - Work commenced in July 2013 on key infrastructure improvements that will unlock housing development at two sites in Daventry, supporting the construction of over 2,000 new homes;

● St John’s/Plough Gyratory (£981,000) - infrastructure improvements completed to ease the traffic flow in Northampton town centre, making access to new and future developments in the area easier;

● Barton Seagrave Primary School extension (£750,000) – Works commenced in October 2013 on this project that will provide an additional 210 school places and support 450 new homes and a £30 million private sector investment.

Without the County Council taking a proactive role, guaranteeing repayment and accepting an element of risk, it is very unlikely that these schemes would have progressed. This type of role is especially important where a scheme may be dependent on funding from a number of developments.

CASE STUDY

Lincolnshire County Council

Investing to realise LEP growth prioritiesLincolnshire County Council and the Greater Lincolnshire LEP share common goals on growth. Examples of the County Council stepping in to provide funding to make things happen and achieve the strategic priorities of the Local Enterprise Partnership are:

● Teal Park, Lincoln – where the County Council, working with engineering giant Siemens and local developers, took the lead in the creation of a new 35 hectare strategic employment park, making an investment of £10 million in the £28 million project to boost economic growth and employment;

● Skills – to assist the LEP’s priority in developing vocational skills, the Council is investing £300,000 p.a. in skills to ensure that gaps in national provision that benefit the area’s growth can be met;

● Lincolnshire Investment Network – a programme established by the County Council in partnership with the University of Lincoln to help SMEs become ‘investor ready’ and be able to make strong cases for equity investment in new products. Potential ‘business angels’ within the county have been identified and already the scheme has led to a number of investments in business growth which do not rely upon banks or government grants.

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CASE STUDY

Staffordshire County Council

Major investments to secure economic growth Key priorities of the Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire LEP are to bring forward key employment sites and to develop and improve infrastructure to promote connectivity. Black Country LEP has similar priorities. Staffordshire County Council and other local authorities are making major investments to turn these priorities into action, for example:

● i54 Business Park – where Staffordshire County Council and Wolverhampton City Council have agreed to put in £40 million to fund and deliver infrastructure works on the i54 business park and a motorway link to the M54 to enable the site to be developed and secure an investment by Jaguar Land Rover of more than £500 million with the creation of more than 1400 jobs;

● Redhill Business Park, Stafford – where Staffordshire County Council is investing £10.7 million in the construction of a new employment park, which will target businesses in the research and technology sector and could create in excess of 2,500 jobs;

● Innovation Centre at Keele University Science Park – where the County Council is investing £6.8 million in a 2,800 sq. m. innovation centre to help develop and expand the cluster of medical research and engineering companies on the science park;

● Superfast Broadband – where the County Council, working in partnership with Stoke on Trent City Council, BDUK and BT, is investing £7.7 million to bring high speed broadband to 97% of Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent by spring 2016;

● Small Business Loan Scheme – where the County Council and Stoke City Council are jointly providing £1 million matched by the European Regional Development Fund to make a total of £2 million available for lending to small businesses.

4.11 Further examples of the key role of local authorities in investing in infrastructure for Enterprise Zones are given in the next chapter.

LEPs – Dependence on local authority funding and support

4.12 Whilst LEPs are partnerships between business, local authorities and other groups, the first report of this project in January 2013 underlined the fact that they had been heavily dependent for their funding and staff support particu-larly on the upper tier and unitary local authorities in their areas. Although LEPs are increasing their operational capacity, in many areas through an increased staffing complement, the 2013 CEDOS/ADEPT member survey indicates that across the country there continues to be a considerable degree of reliance on the local authorities, especially the strategic county, city and unitary authorities, in particular for:

■ local match funding to access central government core funding;

■ the provision of support services – e.g. accountable body, legal and employment services;

■ local authority economic development and other staff resources and expertise; and

■ the funding and delivery of major schemes and initiatives.

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4.13 There can be no doubt that local authority funding, expertise and support will continue be critical to LEP performance in achieving economic growth. However, as the first report of this series said, the financial and staff resources being provided may not be sustainable in the medium to long term as local government faces a further period of spending restraint. This is underlined by continuing reductions in Government funding for local authorities. Although the Autumn Statement 201337 made the welcome announcement that local authorities would be protected from further spending reductions for 2014/15 and 2015/16, they continue to face the 10% cuts announced in the 2013 Spending Round38 in addition to the previously announced cuts of 33% for the period 2011/12-2014/15.

4.14 The Provisional local government finance settlement 2014 to 201539 identified an overall reduction of 2.9% for 2014/15 and an indicative reduction of a further 1.8% in 2015/16. However, figures produced for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) suggest that the amount of central government funding for local authorities in England will fall by more than 9% in 2014/15, with the reduction above average in both metropolitan areas and shires. CIPFA also indicates that, according to its illustrative 2015/16 settlement funding assessment figures, dedicated DCLG support for councils in England will fall by a further 13.17%40.

4.15 The Local Government Association has said that by the end of the current Parliament, local government funding will have fallen by £20 billion, a cut of 43% and that “the next two years will be the toughest yet for local public services”41. Local authorities must maintain their priority on economic development and growth and support for LEPs but with the continuing cuts in Government funding, they may need to look to charging for services to LEPs and recouping costs from the outcomes of LEP initiatives. Examples of where this is happening already are:

■ Derby City Council – provides assistance towards the accounting by D2N2 for its various forms of core funding. It acts as the accountable body, with all activities generated and accounted for by the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of D2N2 LEP. The Council charges a fee of 2% of the funds, which include the core funding from Government, the additional funding offered for the management of EU and Government single pot programmes, etc.

■ Leeds City Region – where the City Council is providing £2.25 million over three years (2013 – 2016) as ‘up front’ funding for a new pro-active inward investment service for Leeds City Region to be delivered by Leeds and Partners in close conjunction with City Region Local Authorities. This will be repaid to the Council via future receipts from the Aire Valley Leeds Enterprise Zone.

RECOMMENDATION Local authorities must maintain their priority on economic development and growth and support for LEPs but with the continuing cuts in Government funding, they may need to look to charging for services to LEPs and recouping costs from the outcomes of LEP initiatives.

37 Autumn Statement HM Treasury 5 December 2013

38 Spending Round 2013 HM Treasury 26 June 2013

39 Written Statement to Parliament 18 December 2013

40 DCLG Funding for Councils cut by more than 9% CIPFA News 20 December 2013

41 Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2014-15 & 2015-16 LGA Briefing 18 December 2013

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5. What Are LEPs Achieving?

Overall progress

5.1 Looking at the 2013 survey compared to that a year ago, the overall picture is one of an increasing momentum with a growing list of achievements, including by those LEPs which began as largely or completely new partnerships, as for example:

■ “D2N2 LEP has made good progress in the last six months, following a rather slow start” (Derby);

■ “Still early days but solid achievements are being made” (Dorset);

■ “the Humber LEP has developed a strong identity and presence and is now moving into delivery mode” (Hull).

CASE STUDY

Dorset LEP

Solid achievements even though still early daysIt is still relatively early days for the Dorset LEP, but achievements to date include:

● delivery of the Growing Places Fund with full commitment of funds, completion of first schemes, and return of loan funds for reinvestment;

● agreement of a Planning Charter between Dorset LEP and all Local Planning Authorities;

● creation of a Digital Manifesto, achieving broad support for the development of the sector across Dorset;

● delivery of the British Business Embassy in Dorset during 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in association with staging of the sailing events of the Games;

● creation of a strategic inward investment team, raising the profile of Dorset as a business location, and working with UKTI Inward Investment Services;

● prioritisation of transportation schemes through the Local Transport Body;

● agreement to the establishment of a destination management organisation (DMO) to improve collaboration in the tourism sector, and provision of funding for the DMO Plan;

● review and update of the Skills Plan for Dorset to feed into the Strategic Economic Plan.

5.2 As the Dorset case study points out for many LEPs it is still relatively early days, underlining the fact that with any major reorganisation it takes time for new structures to find their feet and start to make real progress – especially in this case which involved a major re-structuring of sub national economic develop-ment delivery arrangements in England and where, as the National Audit Office has observed there was a gap between the closure of the RDAs and the gradual establishment of new structures and funds42. In this context it is welcome to report the extent to which progress is being made with the range of achieve-ments, which are covered in this chapter.

42 Funding & Structures for Local Economic Growth National Audit Office 6 December 2013

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Strong partnership working

5.3 Achieving strong and effective partnership working between public and private sectors is a cornerstone of the LEP concept and the 2013 member survey reports good progress, for example:

■ Enterprise M3 LEP – “As a result of its excellent approach to partnership working, the LEP is now well advanced in securing commitment from partners and engaging delivery organisations and agencies” (Hampshire County Council);

■ Oxfordshire LEP – “The LEP has been the stimulus and facilitator for bringing key public and private sector partners together. It has been successful in ensuring there is effective public-private partnership working on a range of issues - from innovation to infrastructure” (Oxfordshire County Council);

■ South East Midlands LEP – “The cross-local authority working, involving completely new relationships having to be built, is already proving successful” (Central Bedfordshire);

■ Swindon & Wiltshire LEP – “Our biggest success has been establishing an effective partnership between business and the public sector. Together we are now really starting to think as one in terms of the economic challenges our area faces”.

Strategy development

5.4 The initial guidance on Growth Deals issued in July 2013 reported that all LEPs had growth plans in place but with the announcement of the Local Growth Fund and the intention to make Growth Deals available to all LEPs, they have been required by Government to review their growth plans to put in place strong, deliverable Strategic Economic Plans incorporating their EU Structural & Investment Fund Strategies for 2014 – 2020. LEPs across the country have worked to a tight timetable to submit their final EU SIF Strategies by the end of January 2014, with the final versions of their overall Strategic Economic Plans to be submitted by March 2014.

5.5 In their existing growth plans, LEPs set out their priorities for achieving local economic growth. By far the most frequently referred to are infrastructure & connectivity, skills, business support and inward investment. In looking at their own achievements many LEPs highlight taking advantage of Government funding e.g. Growing Places Fund and Regional Growth Fund, and other oppor-tunities notably the designation of Enterprise Zones.

Infrastructure & connectivity

5.6 Improving critical infrastructure – transport, employment site development and high speed broadband is a priority for LEPs across the country and the previous chapter has highlighted the crucial role local authorities are making to invest in and deliver key schemes. Government provided a much needed boost in November 2011 with the announcement of the Growing Places Fund for LEPs of £730 million of which £673 million was awarded as capital and £57 million as revenue. GPF was allocated to LEPs on a population basis. Whilst the meth-odology used for its distribution has been the subject of some criticism, the process of allocation rather than competitive bidding enabled LEPs with their strategic local authorities as accountable bodies to move quickly to establish local GPF funds.

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Progress in using the Growing Places Fund

5.7 A report by the Department for Communities & Local Government in November 201343 said LEPs were making good progress in allocating the Fund and listed specific achievements as:

■ £652 million of the GPF earmarked or allocated to 305 specific projects;

■ 159 projects (52% of all projects) with an estimated total value of £1.5 billion already underway and expected to create 4,900 businesses, 94,000 jobs and 27,000 houses;

■ £69 million (12%) of the GPF allocated to projects spent, with LEPs reporting a projected spend of £258 million (40%) by March 2014;

■ Even where the GPF had not yet been spent, the allocations had given developers and house builders the confidence to start;

■ LEPs had used the £652 million of GPF they had earmarked or allocated to projects to unlock £2.6 billion of extra investment; of which £1.8 billion was from private sector partners and £774 million from public sector partners;

■ LEPs expected the projects they funded to create 217,000 jobs (211 proj-ects) and 5,300 businesses (47 projects).

5.8 The National Audit Office, though, has sounded a warning note44. Whilst acknowledging that LEPs have made progress in allocating GPF to local projects, it says that the evidence of outputs in terms of new jobs, houses and improved transport was limited. It states that although LEPs had allocated £599 million (89%) of capital funds to 305 local infrastructure projects by mid-2013, in 2012-13 only £56 million had been spent creating 112 jobs.

5.9 However, the fact is that the GPF allocations to LEPs were not made until February/March 2012 and local schemes had to be set up and robust processes for deciding on and allocating funds to local projects put in place. In this context, whilst the majority of the forecast outcomes remain to be achieved, significant progress is being made. Some examples of GPF projects are given in the DCLG report. Some additional examples of infrastructure projects from CEDOS/ADEPT member areas are given in the following case studies.

CASE STUDY

New Anglia LEP

Small Loans Fund to help kick start development projectsAs well as using the Growing Places Fund to invest in major development projects in Suffolk and Norfolk such as the Ipswich flood defence scheme and the Haverhill Research Park, the New Anglia LEP has launched a new Small Loans Fund to help kick-start smaller development projects by providing up to £500,000 towards the cost of ones that have stalled due to lack of finance. It is action-focused on infrastructure or construction projects that have the potential for broad impact and which are otherwise ready to go.

Projects need to have planning permission and other legal conditions in place and the loan will need to be repaid within 12 to 18 months with interest chargeable at a commercial rate if necessary in terms of State Aid implications.

The first scheme to benefit from the New Anglia Small Loans Fund is a commercial development on the flagship Barton Mills roundabout, with a second phase that will include a number of commercial business units. The development is one of the first major investments secured since work began on dualling a section of the A11 and will create 50 jobs.

43 The Growing Places Fund Investing in Infrastructure DCLG November 2013

44 Funding & Structures for Local Economic Gowth National Audit Office 6 December 2013

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CASE STUDY

Tees Valley Unlimited LEP

Range of Growing Places Fund projects moving forwardThere has been significant interest in the Growing Places Fund in the Tees Valley and a number of projects are moving forward, including:

● Offshore Wind Validation Centre – A £5.18 million project on Teesside Advanced Manufacturing Park - an Enterprise Zone site in Middlesbrough. The 1951 sq.m. building will be used to attract investment by TWI – a world leader in the testing and validation elements of manufacturing processes who are engaged in research and development. This project will have a catalytic effect on the development of the rest of the Park. £1.4 million of GPF was allocated to the project which will deliver 45 new jobs for the area and safeguard a further 30 jobs;

● Greensquare Phase 2 – A £2.295 million project, which will utilise £1.295 million of Growing Places Funding to develop phase 2 of Greensquare, which is within the Tees Valley Enterprise Zone site at Kirkleatham, Redcar & Cleveland. 14 terraced light industrial units will be developed as a result of the investment and will deliver 64 new jobs for the area;

● Central Park – This £4.6 million project has used £1.2 million of Growing Places Funding to move a depot off Central Park in Darlington, enabling the site to be opened up for future development, including the recently announced £38 million National Biologics Manufacturing Catapult Centre, which will lead to further spin off developments, including specialised training centres and the provision of specialist accommodation to house innovative companies looking to bring new products to market;

● Jackson’s Landing – A £1.78 million project, which has used £1.56 million of Growing Places Funding to acquire 2.01 hectares of land at Jackson’s Landing in Hartlepool for the future development of the site, which has been derelict for a number of years. Plans are being developed to create a new leisure centre and create 200 new homes, which will act as a catalyst for further private sector growth in the area. The project is expected to create 160 new jobs;

● Darlington Public Sector Hub – This £8 million project has utilised £1.1 million of Growing Places funding to deliver a new public sector hub for the Department of Education, which is currently located in the town Centre at Darlington in premises that are no longer fit for purpose. The investment, which will safeguard 400 jobs, will deliver a new building in the town centre ensuring there is no detrimental impact on trade.

5.10 The GPF process has much to commend it. As the Department for Communities & Local Government’s report acknowledges, the benefits of allocating GPF to LEPs as an un-ringfenced grant has provided flexibility, given control to LEPs and local authorities and reduced central bureaucracy. The report goes on to say: “using detailed knowledge of their local areas, Local Enterprise Partnerships have been flexible and innovative in the way they have selected, prioritised and funded projects”. Moreover, “they have awarded most of the Fund earmarked or allocated to projects on a loan only basis (82%) enabling them to establish local investment funds which they can then recycle for other projects when development is completed and the loan repaid”45.

45 The Growing Places Fund Investing in Infrastructure DCLG November 2013

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Combining funding opportunities

5.11 A number of LEPs have been pro-active in combining funding opportunities to create bigger local funding pools, for example:

■ West of England LEP – has pooled £16.9 million from GPF and £39.8 million from RGF to form the West of England Revolving Infrastructure Fund worth £56.7 million;

■ North East LEP – has set up its revolving North East Investment Fund using £25 million of GPF and £30 million of RGF to support capital projects that will drive local economic growth;

■ Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly LEP – combining £13 million from RGF with ERDF funding to put in place a £43 million programme to directly create or safeguard 3,200 jobs and indirectly create 2,100 jobs by enabling SMEs and social enterprises to develop their use of superfast broadband; and through funding infrastructure projects in the marine, mineral, renewable energy and aerospace industries;

■ Sheffield City Region LEP – has established a £23 million JESSICA46 Fund utilising £8 million of GPF to lever a further £15 million from the European Regional Development Fund to invest in infrastructure and property proj-ects in South Yorkshire at competitive commercial rates, where funding sources are proving difficult to find in the ordinary commercial capital markets. Money from the repayment of these loans will be recycled back into the Fund to finance new projects.

Enterprise Zones

5.12 The Government announced in Budget 2011 that it would establish 21 new Enterprise Zones with superfast broadband, lower taxes, and low levels of regulation and planning controls. The first round of Enterprise Zones was announced in the Budget to be based in the LEP areas of: Birmingham and Solihull, Sheffield City Region, Leeds City Region, Liverpool City Region, London, Greater Manchester, West of England, the Black Country, Derby/Derbyshire & Nottingham/Nottinghamshire, Tees Valley and the North East.

5.13 A competition for a further ten Enterprise Zones in the remaining LEP areas was also announced for which 30 LEPs submitted bids. In the event, in the announcement in August 2011, eleven LEPs were successful: Humber, Cheshire & Warrington, Cornwall, Solent, Leicester/Leicestershire, Marches, South East, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough and New Anglia.

5.14 From April 2012, 24 Enterprise Zones were operational but the National Audit Office says job creation has been slow and they face a significant challenge to create the number of jobs expected47. The Department of Communities & Local Government has reported that 3,080 jobs were created in 2012-13, 75% of which were from seven Enterprise Zones. In November 2013, the Department reported the Enterprise Zones had attracted 212 businesses, secured half a billion pounds of private sector investment and created over 4,600 jobs48.

5.15 Some individual examples are:

■ Tees Valley – where 8 projects have invested in the Enterprise Zone creating over 170 new jobs with more in the pipeline;

46 JESSICA - Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas, is an initia-tive of the European Commission devel-oped in co-operation with the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank. It supports sustainable urban development and regeneration through financial engineering mechanisms.


48 Enterprise Zones drive Forward UK Industry with Foreign Investment DCLG press release 28 November 2013

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■ Sheffield City Region – where since April 2012 the Enterprise Zone has attracted 15 new occupiers creating 228 new jobs;

■ North East – where the Enterprise Zone has attracted £56 million of private investment and £59.3 million of public investment, created 451 jobs and led to the development of almost 16 hectares of land.

5.16 Overall, the Government’s job creation forecasts for the Enterprise Zones have been scaled down from an initial expectation of 54,000 jobs by 2015 to an assessment of 6 – 8,000. Meantime, the National Audit Office reports that DCLG has strengthened governance and monitoring arrangements: “by July 2013, the Department had agreed the first versions of action plans for each zone, setting out the actions needed to achieve growth by 2015”49.

5.17 Councils have been pro-active in bringing forward and supporting Enterprise Zones, including investing in necessary infrastructure improvements, for example:

■ Hampshire County Council is the delivery partner for a £15.4 million package of works including on-site infrastructure and off-site highway works for the Solent LEP’s Daedalus Enterprise Zone, of which £4.1 million has been provided by the Council’s capital programme;

■ Essex County Council is delivering five highway schemes with a total value of £11 million to unlock the development of the Enterprise West Zone at Harlow;

■ Leeds City Council has invested £2.5 million on a new road to the Logic Leeds site in the Aire Valley Enterprise Zone.

CASE STUDY

Essex County Council

Essential support for Harlow Enterprise Zone Essex County Council is providing significant support for the Harlow Enterprise Zone, across a range of Council functions:

● Highways – the Council is undertaking highway schemes to unlock the development of the Enterprise Zone sites. This has included bids for funding from Growing Places Fund, Department for Transport and developer contribution negotiations. The work involves the delivery of five inter-related schemes by 2015 with a total value of £11 million and the development of a further three major schemes including a new motorway junction;

● External funding – the council has supported a number of funding bids to Growing Places Fund, Local Infrastructure Fund and the Department for Transport Pinch Point fund. As the upper tier authority, the Council has also underwritten loans from the Growing Places Fund;

● Programme Development – the Council has undertaken the development of an implementation programme and reporting tools for the Enterprise Zone Board to oversee and guide delivery;

● Skills – the County Council is working closely with Harlow Council to develop skills initiatives to support the Enterprise Zone e.g. jointly commissioning work to look at the development of skills for advanced manufacturing;

● Inward Investment – the County Council’s Invest Essex team is promoting the Enterprise Zone to potential investors and working with partners to develop the Enterprise Zone proposition and comprehensive marketing and communications activity.


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CASE STUDY

Hampshire County Council

Lead delivery partner for Solent Enterprise Zone Hampshire County Council is acting as the lead delivery body for the Solent Enterprise Zone. It is undertaking essential off-site and on-site infrastructure works including providing £4.1 million from its capital programme as part of a package that also includes funding from the Growing Places Fund, the Regional Growth Fund and the Homes & Communities Agency.

The County Council is advising Fareham College and investing £3 million in its new Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Advanced Skills Training, which will be located at the gateway to the Enterprise Zone to strengthen its credentials as a location for growth in key manufacturing sectors.

For the £8.3 million Phase 2 of the Enterprise Zone development, the County Council is delivering runway improvements and acting as technical adviser for the delivery of the other two elements by Fareham Borough Council – an innovation centre and hangar space.

5.18 In response to infrastructure issues being a continuing barrier faced by some Enterprise Zones, the Government has provided some additional funding through the £59 million local infrastructure fund announced in February 2013 and a further £100 million announced in October 2013. In January 2014, it was announced that the following Enterprise Zones would share the £100 million: Harlow, Humber, Leeds, Sheffield, Discovery Park in Kent, Oxford, Daresbury, Alconbury, London’s Royal Docks, the Black Country, Nottingham and the Solent. At the same time it was announced that universities in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield would be able to bid for part of a £15 million fund to establish university Enterprise Zones to strengthen the role of higher education in supporting local growth and inno-vation.

Business support

5.19 Supporting business growth is a key priority for LEPs. Examples of initia-tives include: Business Growth Hubs, business information portals, business mentoring, business advice events and networking programmes, support for innovation, export support and promotion.

CASE STUDY

New Anglia LEP

Innovation Centre to help kick-start job growth in Kings LynnThe New Anglia LEP is investing £2.5 million in a £5 million purpose-built innovation centre designed to nurture new and growing businesses and be a catalyst for growth in the area. Based in the Nar Ouse Regeneration Area site, the King’s Lynn Innovation Centre will consist of 2323 sq. m. of office, conference and networking facilities, which aims to help to create 420 direct jobs in the local area by 2016. By providing bespoke support, guidance and ongoing assistance, as well as purpose built business accommodation, the Centre, which will be developed and operated by the NWES Enterprise Agency, aims to help harness and develop the economy in West Norfolk by helping new businesses to start up and grow and create more job opportunities in future years.

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CASE STUDY

Dorset

£1.26 million investment in Dorset Growth Hub The Dorset Growth Hub, a new one-stop shop helping businesses access support as well as advice on growth, will be launched in 2014 by the Dorset LEP. It is being funded by the Regional Growth Fund through an allocation by Lancaster University. It will be delivered through the Dorset Chamber of Commerce and managed by WSX Enterprise Ltd, a not-for-profit business support organisation, partnering with a range of business support providers both public and private.

The Dorset Business Growth Hub will offer:

● business owners in Dorset access to information and advice via telephone, on-line and face-to-face;

● a web portal that offers self-help solutions for businesses;

● ‘Business Navigators’ to mentor businesses on a one-to-one basis, offering advice and bringing in other specialist services as appropriate;

● support for businesses wanting to access finance – either in terms of raising finance though banks or equity investment;

● vouchers to support the costs of innovation activity for businesses in areas such as design, proof of concept and commercialisation of developments;

● vouchers towards the costs of internationalisation for businesses, including those trading internationally for the first time or developing new products or services for an overseas market.

Access to finance

5.20 An important part of assisting businesses is access to finance and LEPs throughout the country have supported private sector bids for Regional Growth Funding. In addition, several LEPs have been successful in securing RGF for their own local projects and programmes.

CASE STUDY

Humber LEP

LEP and local authorities secure Regional Growth FundingThe Humber LEP and local authorities in the area have been successful in securing funding from both rounds 2 and 3 of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund.

Under RGF2, Hull & East Riding Councils successfully bid for £25.7 million to support the Green Port Hull development and a potential Siemens investment for the manufacture of offshore wind turbines, creating the climate for the supply chain to invest and to make sure the local labour force has the required skills.

Under RGF3, the Humber LEP was awarded £30 million comprising:

● a £10 million programme to support the renewable energy sector on the South Bank of the Humber, with grants to support new investment, skills and research and development to enable businesses to access a similar level of support to that available on the North Bank through the earlier Round 2 bid;

● a £20 million business expansion programme with grants available through a competitive fund to support growth in other key Humber sectors including logistics, food and digital.

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CASE STUDY

Marches and Worcestershire LEPs

Redundant Building Grant SchemeThe Redundant Building Grant Scheme demonstrates the significant long-term impact a comparatively small injection of public funding can have a on the economy of a local area. £5.1 million has been secured from the Regional Growth Fund to help small job-creating businesses to transform underused and redundant buildings into a base for their commercial enterprises and levering in match funding of £11 million from the private sector. The scheme provides capital grant support of between £3,000 and £50,000 up to a maximum 30% contribution towards project costs. It is expected that it could support the creation of around 330 direct jobs as well as 165 indirect jobs and more than 50 businesses.

The initiative provides an effective response to remove known barriers to growth in the Marches and Worcestershire LEP areas, namely access to finance and availability of suitable, good quality workspace for small business enterprises. The scheme also directly supports wider LEP priority issues including regeneration of market towns; retention and reuse of historic buildings; improvement of a commercial rate of return on conversion projects; and enabling business expansion.

The project is already proving effective in both urban and rural parts of the LEPs and offers a unique opportunity to encourage sustainable job creation in small rural settlements. The initiative is built upon a previous similar successful scheme which ran in parts of the Marches. This was independently evaluated as providing a powerful intervention for revitalising rural economies and it was calculated that for every £1 of expenditure on the scheme, the return on investment was £10.37.

Programmes covering several LEPs

5.21 The previous case study is an example of a scheme, which now covers two adja-cent LEPs. Other examples of programmes that have been designed to cover two or more LEP areas are:

■ West Midlands LEPs Regional Investment Fund – The six LEPs in the West Midlands have agreed to cooperate on a new £125 million Regional Fund to improve access to finance for companies across the region;

■ Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP – awarded £20 million RGF for the Green Bridge Supply Chain Programme, managed by Birmingham City Council, which provides grants of £20,000 - £100,000 to help SME supply chain companies develop, grow and diversify their businesses within the green sector in the West Midlands50;

■ Northamptonshire LEP/South East Midlands LEP – additional funding from RGF4 to expand the existing £1.2 million High Performance Technologies (HPT) Investment Programme, which had been funded by previous rounds of the RGF and part funded by ERDF and is managed by the Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership. The successful partnership bid aims to develop the HPT sector, identified as a key cluster of industry activity for future potential business and employment growth.

50 The programme covers the LEP areas of Greater Birmingham & Solihull, Black Country, Coventry & Warwickshire, The Marches, Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent and Worcestershire.

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CASE STUDY

West Midlands LEPs

Working together on £125 million access to finance programmeThe six Local Enterprise Partnerships in the West Midlands have agreed to work together on a new £125 million Regional Investment Fund designed to improve access to finance for companies across the region. The Fund will comprise a range of programmes to support growing businesses in the Black Country, Coventry & Warwickshire, Greater Birmingham & Solihull, Marches, Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire and Worcestershire LEP areas.

Under the agreement each LEP will contribute part of their European Structural and Investment Fund allocations for 2014 and 2020 to support businesses into a central fund. Totalling £50 million, this will enable the LEPs to access an additional estimated £75 million to create a £125 million Regional Investment Fund to provide a range of access to finance programmes to help small and medium-sized enterprises grow and create jobs. Whilst work remains to be done to develop the detail of the Fund, this could include loans for small businesses, loan guarantees, seed corn equity, growth equity, mezzanine finance as well as finance for innovation and low carbon businesses.

Targeting assistance to SMEs

5.22 With the minimum RGF bid level set at £1 million, a number of successful LEP schemes have addressed the issue of enabling smaller businesses to benefit from funding. Examples of LEP business support RGF schemes include:

■ Coventry & Warwickshire LEP – £24 million from RGF3 to help companies expand by buying assets through grants, and to boost infrastructure projects leading to job creation, with advanced engineering, low carbon vehicles and digital technologies identified as key sectors;

■ Solent LEP – has received RGF funding to provide a range of business support schemes: Bridging the Gap schemes to provide grants between £5,000 and £50,000 for start-up and SMEs in specified areas of the LEP; a Solent Enterprise Zone Advanced Manufacturing Fund to provide grants between £50,000 - £200,000 for SMEs based on or re-locating to the Enterprise Zone and targeted at the aerospace, aviation and marine sectors; and the Solent Futures SME Programme Fund with £4.7 million of invest-ment funding available to help SMEs in the Portsmouth Naval Base supply chain in the Solent region with grants of between £10,000 and £300,000;

■ New Anglia LEP – £12 million from rounds 3 and 4 of RGF for its Growing Business Fund, which is now available across the whole of Norfolk and Suffolk and provides grants of between £25,000 and £500,000 to busi-nesses that have a shortfall in their investment plans and are able to create at least one job for every £10,000 provided by the fund;

■ Sheffield City Region LEP – secured £32 million from RGF3 and RGF4 for its Unlocking Business Investment programme, which can provide grants of between £25,000 and £2 million for capital projects and new research and development projects. As of September 2013, £21,300,000 of the fund had either been allocated or nominally allocated and forecast to unlock £126,400 of direct business investment and create 1567 new private sector jobs across the City Region by March 2016;

■ Tees Valley Unlimited LEP – A £10 million Contract Catalyst fund from RGF3 to provide loans for SMEs unable to finance performance bonds commonly found in construction projects, which require a company to hand over a bond to its client, typically 10% of the project’s value, to ensure the contract is fulfilled.

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CASE STUDY

Tees Valley Unlimited LEP

Innovative £10 million Contract Catalyst Fund A £10 million fund supported by a successful bid to the Regional Growth Fund has been launched by the Tees Valley Unlimited LEP to help ambitious companies in the Tees Valley to provide performance and warranty bonds.

Bonds are commonly found in construction projects, which require a company to hand over a bond to its client, typically 10% of the project’s value, to ensure the contract is fulfilled. Since the recession, providing the required cash security for a bond is a common obstacle in winning contracts or growing a business, even if companies have been successful in the technical stages of a tendering competition.

The Contract Catalyst Fund provides short term loans of £50,000 to £4 million to small, medium and large businesses to fund performance or warranty bonds to allow them to bid for bigger contacts than previously possible. It is forecast to lead to an estimated £700 million of additional work and 1,440 jobs over ten years.

The Fund provides up to 100% of the cash security required and structures repayments based on the staged payments from the client with no early repayment penalties. Upon repayment, the money is recycled to help other firms. Although priced commercially, due to the performance bond generally being 10% of the total contract value, the Fund can help unlock significant new contracts with the price of the Fund causing an overall impact of circa 1-2%, and hence potentially could be priced into the tender with no cost impact on the business.

CASE STUDY

Leeds City Region

Business Growth Programme Leeds City Region LEP successfully secured £25.7 million from rounds 3 and 4 of the Regional Growth Fund for its Business Growth Programme launched in 2013. The Programme provides grant funding of between £10,000 and £1 million to businesses based in or planning to invest in the Leeds City Region.

The grant funding can contribute towards:

● capital investment in land, buildings, plant, machinery and equipment;

● research and development activity, which will support business and jobs growth.

Although large companies may be eligible in certain circumstances, the programme is targeted in particular at SMEs to meet an identified un-met demand for funding business expansion projects across the City Region to create new jobs and business growth. As at December 2013, over £8 million in grants had been committed, with many projects in the pipeline awaiting approval. Businesses are expected to have private finance to invest alongside the Business Growth Programme and for every £1 of grant businesses should be able to provide £4 of private sector investment. From the £8 million granted from the Business Growth Programme, private sector match funding has resulted in a further £48 million of private sector investment secured within the City Region.

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Innovation

5.23 Although promoting innovation is led nationally, some LEPs have been active in using Government funding to support innovation as for example:

■ Greater Manchester LEP – which has secured RGF investment to support the growth of scientific enterprise across the region through supporting start-ups, small-medium companies and collaborative projects between universities and businesses to stimulate research, development and job creation;

■ Marches LEP – which has committed £750,000 of its GPF allocation to invest in the new Agricultural Innovation Centre at Harper Adams University, a national centre to support advanced technology and manufacturing for the agri-food sector;

■ Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough & New Anglia LEPs – awarded £3.2 million from RGF to support the development of the agri-tech industry in an initiative, which will bring together leading agriculture, research, science and technology assets in the East of England to strengthen a nationally significant cluster.

CASE STUDY

Greater Cambridge / Greater Peterborough & New Anglia LEPs

Eastern England Agri-Tech Growth Initiative £3.2 million from the Regional Growth Fund has been awarded to support the development of the agri-tech industry in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk following a bid led by the Greater Cambridge & Greater Peterborough LEP in conjunction with New Anglia LEP.

The initiative will bring together leading agriculture, research, science and technology assets in the East of England to strengthen a nationally significant cluster to give impetus to the emerging UK agri-tech sector. The scheme aims to deliver 500 jobs, 25 new businesses and help to secure the future success of the sector for the next 25 years.

Focusing on future success, the initiative will boost growth by:

● supporting the development, application and commercialisation of new technology in the food and agriculture industry through new market and supply chain development;

● enabling essential skills development;

● stengthening a cluster that puts the UK at the forefront of global challenges facing the food and agriculture sector;

● providing loans for local SMEs in specialist food-related sectors and industries;

● creating innovation support for micro-enterprises that are currently unable to access support via existing schemes, such as the Growth Accelerator;

● reviewing opportunities to create a private sector network for the agri-tech cluster in the area to help broker investments.

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CASE STUDY

Marches LEP

The Agricultural Innovation Centre at Harper Adams University – delivering the National Agri-technology StrategyThe Marches LEP has committed £750,000 of its Growing Places Fund allocation to invest in the new Agricultural Innovation Centre at Harper Adams University, a national centre to support advanced technology and manufacturing for the agri-food sector, providing an integrated engineering complex.

The Centre, which has a total cost of £3.5 million, has also received grant funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and significant sponsorship from the private sector. It will support large businesses and SMEs to adopt cutting edge practices, up-skill their workforce and significantly improve competitiveness in their business. The development will create initially an additional 22 new jobs and a further 200 jobs in local beneficiary private companies.

The Centre will also promote long-term links to a research & development and higher-level skills base in the university sector that will enable the network of companies to take a lead role, in Europe at least, on precision farming providing significant longer term prospects for job growth. It will support further development of best practice within the food security agenda.

Skills

5.24 Skills development is a key priority of LEPs across the country. Examples of actions include:

■ LEPs such as Dorset, the Marches, Leeds City Region, Greater Birmingham & Solihull have produced skills plans and New Anglia LEP has launched its skills manifesto;

■ Dorset LEP has developed a skills support for the workforce web site and Tees Valley Unlimited has a skills portal as an on-line resource for individuals, employers, learning and skills partners and policy makers;

■ Tees Valley Unlimited has been successful in achieving a £7 million award in the RGF4 round to deliver flexible support for employers to create new jobs, particularly apprenticeships. Alongside this a Skills Hub is being devel-oped to bring partners and activities together and facilitate engagement between employers, learners and training providers. These programmes will support the delivery of the City Deal;

■ North East, Stoke & Staffordshire and the West of England LEPs have been chosen by Government to pilot innovative new approaches to skills devel-opment funding;

■ Humber LEP, where ensuring the workforce has the skills and ability to access new employment opportunities is one of the two areas of focus of the Hull & Humber City Deal. The finalised City Deal includes participation in a national pilot (with BIS & the Skills Funding Agency) to develop and implement a payment by results pilot for the Humber51.

51 Hull and Humber City Deal signed in December 2013

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Moving forward – Measuring LEP achievements

5.25 As the examples and case studies in this chapter illustrate, LEPs are making real progress in developing new initiatives and making use of the national funding that has eventually been made available to them. In its assessment, however, the National Audit Office has been critical. It says progress by LEPs has been mixed and refers to limited evidence of outputs but concedes that they were still largely in set-up mode in 2010. In this context, it is still early days to measure outcomes in relation to costs, particularly for LEPs that have not had the advan-tage of building on pre-existing partnerships.

5.26 However, the stage has now been reached at which LEPs will increasingly be judged both nationally and locally on the extent to which they are delivering economic growth and the outcomes they are achieving. The National Audit Office has called on the Government Departments to address how they intend to evaluate performance and monitor outcomes. It criticises Government for not having a clear plan to measure outcomes and evaluate performance and to be able to show value for money across its programme of local growth initiatives as a whole – including LEPs, Enterprise Zones and the RGF.

5.27 Measuring outcomes will be increasingly important for local authorities, given the substantial level of investment in terms of finance and elected member and staff time being made in LEPs. At a time of severe pressure on local authority budgets, the need to ensure LEPs are providing real and measurable added value to the economic development activities of the local authorities and other local partners is essential. It will be important however to ensure that systems that are put in place are proportionate and performance indicators are locally relevant. It will be equally important to avoid making unrealistic comparisons between LEPs, which have very different characteristics and circumstances.

5.28 The issue of developing performance measures for LEPs was the subject of one of the member surveys in 2013. Some key overall points from responses received were:

■ “There is a need to contain the work level on performance indicators and distinguish between PIs and state of the economy indicators”;

■ “It is not possible for LEP performance measurement to enable comparison across the LEPs – we all know that we are not comparing like with like”.

■ “All LEPs are very different and should be able to be so. Comparisons that stress what one area is doing and others aren’t might lead to criticisms when actually the area is doing the same things but through other part-ners such as local authorities – the reality is that the relationships between LEPs and local authorities differ in different places”.

■ “Our preference would be that any PIs are outcome rather than output based”.

■ “Measuring our success and ensuring we are getting it right are important. However, we will not set targets for or measure ourselves against outcomes over which we have little or no control (Gross Value Added, unemployment figures, household incomes), just as we will not claim credit for others’ successes”.

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5.29 Many of these echo key points that emerged from previous CEDOS work on performance measurement for local authority economic development, which emphasised that the definition of Key Performance Indicators (PIs) must reflect the widespread, serious concern about the danger of performance measure-ment taking up a disproportionate amount of staff time. In this context, CEDOS put forward a set of key principles for PIs – that they should be:

■ few in number;

■ easy to collect;

■ easy to understand;

■ effective measures of performance;

■ adequate to define the results of economic development activities;

■ directly related to the outcomes of local actions.

5.30 CEDOS emphasised:

■ the importance of being able to select indicators that are relevant to local circumstances, priorities and mix of services;

■ the importance of distinguishing between contextual and performance indicators and recognising that broad indicators of local economic health, whilst providing an essential context for defining operational objectives and economic development actions, are too susceptible to external influ-ence to be a reliable guide to the impact of local actions;

■ that economic development is a long-term activity and performance measurement needs to reflect the fact that successful outcomes can take time to achieve.

5.31 CEDOS also recognised that strategic actions including leadership, advocacy, influencing and lobbying often make a critical underpinning contribution to subsequent outcomes, arguing that there is a compelling case for recognising the contribution strategic actions make but acknowledging the obvious difficulties of measuring results. In this context CEDOS carried out some preliminary work on developing strategic indicators but recognised that not all strategic actions would be susceptible to measurement, highlighting a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that is well worth repeating in the context of LEPs: “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted, counts.”

5.32 As far as LEPs themselves are concerned, approaches vary with some using high level indicators such as overall increases in jobs, number of businesses and Gross Value Added, and decreases in unemployment. Others are focusing on indicators directly related to the LEP’s specific activities. The following example from the Humber LEP52 links closely to the approach advocated in CEDOS’ earlier work.

52 Plan for the Humber 2012 17 Humber LEP October 2012

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CASE STUDY

Humber LEP

Approach to measuring successMeasuring our success and ensuring we are getting it right are important. The LEP Board will regularly review our Plan and the LEP’s activities to ensure they are achieving what we have set out to do. The LEP Forum and its Advisory Board will also help to involve the wider business community and stakeholders in the Plan’s delivery.

However, we will not set targets for or measure ourselves against outcomes over which we have little or no control (GVA, unemployment figures, household incomes), just as we will not claim credit for others’ successes.

Where the LEP is investing money directly into projects we will monitor their outputs in the normal way, but this will only be a small part of our work. Our primary tools for the job – leadership, co-ordination and influence – cannot easily be converted into a chart.

Investment success rates, capital expenditure and major planning applications will give us some guidance. The real test, though, has to be that all the various stakeholders – the business community, the general public, central government and local authorities – have confidence that we are going in the right direction and making things happen.

RECOMMENDATION Measuring LEP performance in delivering local economic growth will be increasingly important but systems put in place must be proportionate with performance measures locally relevant and realistic.

RECOMMENDATION Government and local authorities should avoid making unrealistic comparisons between LEPs, which have very different characteristics and circumstances.

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6. Growth Deals & the Local Growth Fund

– the next Phase of LEP Development

6.1 Local Enterprise Partnerships continue to develop and the announcements on Growth Deals and the Local Growth Fund from 2015 mark the beginning of a new phase. In this final chapter, a critical look is taken at the Government’s decisions on the Local Growth Fund and, drawing on this year’s survey of CEDOS and ADEPT members, an early assessment is made of the actions Government expects local authorities within LEPs to take, as set out in the Growth Deals Guidance, together with related issues.

Local Growth Fund (LGF)

6.2 Lord Heseltine in his review called for £12 billion a year of Government Departmental budgets that support growth or £49 billion over the four year spending review period, to be devolved to a single funding pot for local areas. He produced an indicative list of central budgets that would be more effec-tively managed by local leaders, which included significant parts of the skills, local infrastructure, employment support, housing, regeneration and business support budgets held by central government.

6.3 In the 2012 Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced the Government’s intention to create a single funding pot for local areas from April 2015, although on the scale of funding, the Chancellor gave no details other than to say Government would devolve a greater proportion of growth-related spending to local areas from April 2015. In the full Government’s response to Lord Heseltine issued at the time of the 2013 Budget it was stated that all funding streams identified by Lord Heseltine would be reviewed but that the Government saw three areas in particular as being critical to the success of the Fund – transport, housing and skills.

6.4 Subsequently following reports, including Ministerial comments, that the size of the Fund could fall well short of Lord Heseltine’s figures, both ADEPT53 and CEDOS54 submitted papers to Government emphasising that if the level and breadth of the devolved funding were to fall short of Lord Heseltine’s ambition, it would threaten the viability of the Fund and its ability to make a real differ-ence to enabling local areas across the country to fulfil their growth potential and maximise their contribution to national economic recovery.

6.5 Following the 2013 Spending Round presented to Parliament in June 2013, the Government announced that the Single Local Growth Fund would be set at £2 billion for 2015-16 part of which would be allocated to Growth Deals for LEP areas negotiated on the basis of LEP Strategic Economic Plans55. The initial guidance to LEPs on Growth Deals published at the end of July 2013 set out the components of what was now being referred to as the Local Growth Fund:

53 Devolving Economic Powers to achieve Local Growth ADEPT’s views on the Government response to Lord Heseltine’s review May 2013

54 Taking Forward the Single Local Growth Fund CEDOS May 2013

55 Investing in Britains Future HM Treasury 27 June 2013

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Source £ million 2015/16

Local Authority Transport Majors 819

Local Sustainable Transport Fund (Capital) 100

Integrated Transport Block 200

Further Education Capital 330

European Social Fund Match 170

New Homes Bonus 400

Total 2,019

Inclusion of part of New Homes Bonus

6.6 Many councils were strongly opposed to the intention to transfer £400 million of the New Homes Bonus (NHB) to the Local Growth Fund, which they consid-ered could be counter-productive in incentivising new house building. Research for this project identified significant concerns at the proposed inclusion of 100% of county council NHB in the LGF as in two-tier areas it is the county councils that are responsible for the infrastructure and many of the services that are essential to making housing growth sustainable. Moreover, as the County Council’s Network pointed out, it could undermine efforts to boost local growth and put at risk key economic development projects, including several rural broadband schemes, for which NHB funding had already been earmarked. There were also concerns about how the NHB would be pooled for local authorities covered by more than one Local Enterprise Partnership.

6.7 Subsequently in December 2013, following the response to a Government consultation, the Communities Secretary announced that the Government would reverse its decision on including part of NHB in the Local Growth Fund outside London and said that the Fund would be made up from other decentralised budget, which were identified in the 2013 Autumn Statement as the Regional Growth Fund, funding for large sites and the Housing Revenue Account.

Overall reaction to the Local Growth Fund announcement

6.8 Whilst there is disappointment in particular over its initial size and the fact that it is not yet a true single pot, the Local Growth Fund represents an important step in taking forward the localism agenda. This is reflected in the strong support for the concept of the Fund in the CEDOS/ADEPT member survey. At the same time a number of major concerns have been raised, particularly in rela-tion to: the size and make-up of the Fund, the uncertainty over future funding, the costs of the competitive process, and a lack of sufficient flexibility. It will be important for Government to address these issues in future years to ensure that the ambition for the Fund can be fully realised. For LEPs and local government it will be important not only to maximise the opportunities presented by the LGF but also to look beyond the £2 billion that has been announced and seek to influence overall Government spending priorities.

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Local Growth Fund issues

6.9 Size & composition of Fund – The 2013 member surveys underline the wide-spread concern at:

■ the size of the Fund nationally for 2015/16 and the fact that around half of the national allocation of £2 billion is made up of funding streams that were already devolved;

■ the amount of LGF coming in many cases from sources of funding, which have already been committed to projects e.g. Local Transport Majors.

6.10 Uncertainty over future funding – In the surveys, members emphasised the need for certainty of future LGF funding and the flexibility to enable decisions to be made on long-term projects. Although LEP Strategic Economic Plans will be multi-year, the growth deal initial guidance states that LGF resources for 2015/16 should be spent in that financial year wherever possible. Whilst there is a welcome for the ‘commitment’ to maintaining the level of funding for each year of the next parliament, there is, as members have pointed out, a General Election in 2015! There is also the issue of uncertainty for local authority budget planning if in future years’ resources are taken from their prospective allocations or gains from funding streams such as Sustainable Transport Funding.

6.11 Costs of a competitive process – The initial guidance on Growth Deals states that around half of the 2015/16 LGF will be allocated to LEPs (mostly those elements that comprise funding already devolved) with the remaining approximately £1 billion to be “allocated through the Growth Deal process in a competitive way”. The guidance argues that this will be the fairest way of distributing funding and will be an important means of driving better invest-ment, collaboration, commitment, ambition and innovation. However, in the CEDOS/ADEPT surveys, members made the point strongly that the costs of the competitive approach for LEPs and local authorities should not be underesti-mated. Indeed, as ADEPT and CEDOS have argued, it will involve a bureaucratic and time consuming process for both local areas and Government that would be wasteful at a time when resources are scarce. Moreover, it could work against the need for the certainty of funding required to achieve the sustained growth business requires. At the very least, the balance between the allocated and competitive elements of LGF needs revisiting.

6.12 Lack of flexibility – The member surveys also highlight concerns about the lack of flexibility and the issue of internal ring fences e.g. in relation to ESF match funding and further education capital. As one member has said “early details about its implementation and execution display some worrying, but not surprising, signs of the development of an overly burdensome operational apparatus with multiple funding streams rather than a single funding stream and local authorities in effect having to ‘re-bid’ via LEPs for funding already allo-cated. For future years, a return to the original intention of a Single Local Growth Fund is needed”.

RECOMMENDATION The Local Growth Fund is an important step forward but to ensure that the ambition for the Fund can be fully realised, Government must address the widespread concerns about its overall size and the way it is made up, the costs and bureaucracy involved in the competitive approach for much of the Fund and its lack of flexibility.

RECOMMENDATION LEPs and local authorities should not only maximise the opportunities presented by the Local Growth Fund but also look beyond the £2 billion that has been announced and seek to influence overall Government spending priorities.

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Growth Deals

6.13 The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s review stated that LEP Strategic Economic Plans would form the basis on which the Government negotiates a Growth Deal with every LEP through which they would be able to seek free-doms, flexibilities and influence over resources from Government as well as a share of the Local Growth Fund.

RECOMMENDATION It will be important for local Growth Deals to result in a genuine devolution of funding streams with buy-in across Government Departments and for the Local Growth Fund to be developed to become a truly devolved single pot without internal ring fences for local decision–making and spending on locally determined priorities.

6.14 The initial guidance on Growth Deals states that whilst it will be for each LEP and constituent local authority members to decide how to make best use of all the available resources and levers, in assessing Strategic Economic Plans, Government will be looking for:

■ a clear commitment from local authorities in LEP areas to maintain their activities on economic development and growth;

■ a commitment to collective decision-making involving all local authorities within a LEP;

■ the aligning or pooling of local authority capital and revenue spend on growth, particularly on housing, transport, economic development, regen-eration, planning and infrastructure;

■ effective collaboration on economic development activities e.g. merging teams and agreeing shared plans where possible to deliver efficiencies and a more joined up approach;

■ arrangements for making decisions through LEPs that support democratic accountability and business rigour/prioritisation;

■ arrangements for effective political and financial accountability to ensure that public money is being spent with regularity, propriety and value for money;

■ any proposals for changed LEP boundaries should address the same criteria that were in the original invitation to civic and business leaders in June 2010.

6.15 These issues were addressed in the 2013 CEDOS/ADEPT member surveys. Whilst some of the findings are referred to below, with LEP Strategic Plan proposals still being put in place, they come with the usual ‘health warning’. Things are moving quickly and will need to be kept under review.

Local authority commitments to maintaining activities on economic development and growth

6.16 In the initial guidance on Growth Deals, Government makes clear that LEP Strategic Economic Plans should include a clear commitment from the local authorities to maintain their activities on economic development and growth. To support the case for local accountability Government will expect to see “evidence that local activity on economic development is maintained relative to statutory service provision”.

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6.17 This and the expectation that local authorities will continue to be the major providers of local resources for LEPs inevitably raises the issue of the impact of cuts to local government funding on local authority economic development budgets. The 2013 members’ surveys for this project suggests that generally local authorities across the country are maintaining their priority on economic development with activities broadly being retained although a number refer to budget cuts over the last two years on top of the significant reductions in the previous two years56. Looking forward over the next year, there is consid-erable uncertainty given the pressure on resources, councils being asked to make significant overall savings and in some cases further restructuring being undertaken/in prospect. Although some respondents were optimistic, others were forecasting cuts including one saying - “it is highly unlikely that current staffing/expenditure will be maintained” and another - “there is a prospect of at least a 10% cut in economic development revenue expenditure in 2014/15”.

6.18 Over the longer term, the outlook is one of continued reductions in council’s spending power (See Chapter 4), which can only add to the uncertainty for spending on economic development and growth. Despite local government’s commitment to economic development, as the Chairman of the Local Government Association said in 2012, as local government’s funding shrinks and demand for the most pressing council services, such as adult care and children’s safeguarding rises, the growth promoting role is coming under increasing threat57. With continuing cuts over the next two years, the threat remains. As the LGA has said “the next two years will be the toughest yet” and “2015/16 will be a crunch year for councils and local public services”58.

Collective decision-making by local authorities in LEPs

6.19 The initial Growth Deal guidance states that Government will expect LEPs and local authorities to demonstrate arrangements which deliver collective deci-sions from all local authority leaders, including district councils, within the LEP with evidence of underpinning robust partnership arrangements. Government recognises that arrangements may vary from area to area but suggests that authorities may want to consider, for example, a Joint Leaders Committee, Economic Prosperity Board, Combined Authority or other arrangement.

6.20 Earlier, in its response to Lord Heseltine issued in March 2012, Government had called for local authorities to manage and account for localised funds through binding and long-lived decision-making structures with a prefer-ence for Combined Authorities or as a minimum Joint Leaders Committees. However, in the guidance on Growth Deals, Government recognised that a Combined Authority or Economic Prosperity Board might not be right for all places and would also be challenging to deliver by 2015. Moreover, with the guidance calling for arrangements to be coterminous with LEP areas, there are complications for some Combined Authority/Economic Prosperity Board areas, where “there will need to be clear and robust arrangements for engaging local authorities not formally represented to deliver joint decisions”59 and for LEPs with overlapping boundaries, where “arrangements may need to be put in place to make joint decisions that affect more than one LEP”60.

56 See Delivery models for sub-regional economic development CEDOS/ADEPT 2012

57 Sir Merrick Cockell in Local Governments Role in Promoting Economic Growth Professor Tony Travers, LGA November 2012

58 Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2014-15 & 2015-16 LGA Briefing 18 December 2013

59 Growth Deals – Initial Guidance for Local Enterprise Partnerships HM Government July 2013

60 ibid

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6.21 The issue of collective decision-making is still under consideration in many areas. Some examples of what is happening/likely in individual areas are:

■ Combined Authorities – Following the establishment of a Combined Authority for Greater Manchester, proposals have come forward from North East LEP area, Leeds City Region (West Yorkshire Combined Authority), Sheffield City Region and Liverpool City Region. Leeds and Sheffield City Region LEPs are both affected by a number of statutory conditions that have to be considered, including that the area of the combined authority must consist of contiguous whole local government areas and must not overlap with the area of another combined authority, an economic prosperity board or an integrated transport authority61. In this context, Government has consulted on proposals for: West Yorkshire Combined Authority62, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne & Wear Combined Authority, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham & Sheffield Combined Authority, and Greater Merseyside Combined Authority;

■ Economic Prosperity Boards – In the D2N2 LEP area, an Economic Prosperity Board is to be set up for Derby and Derbyshire;

■ Joint Leaders Boards/Committees – The most likely approach for most areas, for example:

● Humber, where the four local authorities in the Humber LEP are to create a formally constituted Joint Committee – the Humber Leadership Board, to provide strategic decision-making on all economic and employment related matters;

● In part of D2N2, where a Joint Economic Prosperity Committee will be established for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

Aligning or pooling of local authority spend on growth

6.22 The initial guidance on Growth Deals says that in assessing LEP Strategic Economic Plans, Government will be looking for the aligning or pooling of local authority capital and revenue spend on growth, particularly on housing, trans-port, economic development, regeneration, planning and infrastructure - across the whole LEP area.

6.23 The overall message from the 2013 CEDOS/ADEPT member survey is that although local authorities are working closely together, at this stage there is a good deal of uncertainty on the prospects for pooling. Views vary from ‘quite likely’ to ‘highly unlikely’ to ‘no chance’. Although some refer to high level discussions going on, others draw attention to the difficulties in two-tier areas with a large number of councils involved and in areas where LEPs have a large geographical coverage. Moreover, overlapping LEP boundaries add a further complication.

6.24 The difficulties should not be underestimated. As one member said “with two unitary authorities, one county council, six district councils (including two district partnership arrangements) this is not an easy task!”, whilst another referred to trying to adopt a joint planning approach rather than pooling budgets into a single authority as a more realistic option, with some councils being protective of their autonomy.

61 Under the provi-sions of the Local Democracy, Economic Development & Construction Act 2009

62 In addition to the constituent coun-cils of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield, the proposed West Yorkshire Combined Authority also includes the City of York Council as a non-constituent member; the West Yorkshire Transport Fund also covers York.

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Collaboration on economic development activities across LEP areas

6.25 Government will also be looking for effective collaboration across LEP areas on economic development activities, e.g. by merging teams and agreeing shared plans where possible to deliver efficiencies and a more joined up approach.

6.26 In the response to the 2013 member’s survey, there are different positions on the issue of merging economic development teams, which to an extent varies with whether or not LEPs have been built on pre-existing partnerships e.g. in Tees Valley, where the five unitary authorities have for several years pooled resources through Tees Valley Unlimited and predecessor organisations in rela-tion to economic strategy and intelligence, strategic transport, external funding, inward investment and business engagement and support for strategic compa-nies and marketing and promoting the area for investment.

6.27 In Hertfordshire the existing joint Hertfordshire County Council and LEP teams are due to be replaced from April 2014 by a single LEP team, with the County Council contributing £250,000 p.a. to the LEP, which will deliver a number of services to the Council via a service level agreement. In other areas, whilst a number of respondents indicate the issue being under consideration and discussions going on, others refer to merging teams not being considered currently or being seen as unlikely. At the same time there is a high degree of effective joint working across local authority boundaries as for example in Greater Lincolnshire.

CASE STUDY

Greater Lincolnshire LEP

Local authorities agree priorities for working togetherThe LEP is supported by an officer group made up of economic development managers from North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, and Lincolnshire County Councils. The 3 councils have agreed that they will work together through the Greater Lincolnshire LEP on the following matters:

● visitor economy development and promotion;

● supply chain and international trade activity in agri-food;

● transport infrastructure and connectivity;

● flood risk mitigation and lobbying;

● influencing the provision of utilities for economic growth;

● strengthening of the care sector as a business sector;

● collaborative approaches to business support, growth, and advice;

● employability, skills and labour market information.

6.28 As regards merging teams, it may be that this is most likely to be practical at the level of individual economic development service areas such as inward investment, examples of which include the Stoke on Trent & Staffordshire LEP, where Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council have established the joint inward investment team Make It Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire and the Black Country LEP, where Invest Black Country has been set up with a dedicated team across all four local authorities to maximise inward investment opportunities.

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LEP decision-making, governance & accountability

6.29 The Growth Deal Guidance makes clear that LEPs need to consider whether the partnerships have the right governance and decision-making arrangements. It says that effective accountability for the Local Growth Fund is essential and that at the local level this can be delivered via democratically elected council leaders who take on responsibility for decisions over the use of resources. Whilst the arrangements are for the local business and local authority leaders to determine, they “must support democratic accountability and business rigour/prioritisation and be signed up to by all Local Enterprise Partnership members”63.

6.30 This is an area of critical importance and local authorities have taken on the role of accountable bodies both for LEPs as a whole and for individual funding strands/areas of activity. However, as ADEPT and CEDOS have made clear, the increasing responsibilities and funding for LEPs underline the importance of robust and transparent local governance and accountability arrangements being put in place not only for the delivery of LEP strategies but also for making the strategic decisions on the spending of public money.

6.31 In recent evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth, ADEPT and CEDOS said whilst there must be scope for variation in the governance models selected, “there must be clear and unequivocal democratic account-ability. The fact is that LEPs lack a specific democratic mandate, which neces-sarily limits how far they should or may wish to take determinative decisions on key issues and therefore how effective they can be. The local authority role will be critical and this must be reflected in LEP governance arrangements”64.

6.32 The National Audit Office has said that whilst the Department for Communities & Local Government is using its system of accountability for local authority spending for the new structures for local growth, “the involvement of Local Enterprise Partnerships in decision-making presents risks which will need to be managed”65. It observes that the links between LEPs, and therefore the Enterprise Zones, Growing Places Fund and the Growth Deals are complex and weak in certain instances. It also says that the DCLG system may be undermined by responsibilities being unclear. In telephone interviews with LEPs and local authorities, 34 out of 43 interviewees thought that the accountability arrange-ments were complex and 18 were unclear about them.

6.33 The survey of CEDOS and ADEPT members indicates that in many areas, the governance & accountability arrangements are still being reviewed, with a number of comments referring to Joint Leaders Committees, for example:

■ “the role for the Local Authority Leader’s Group is likely to be formalised to support democratic accountability”;

■ “the working assumption is that a Leaders’ Committee, comprising Leaders of all local authorities within the LEP area, will be set up to complement the role of the LEP Board and will sign off the Strategic Economic Plan”;

■ “under the guidance of the LEP with delivery overseen by a Joint Leadership Board”.

6.34 Current examples of approaches include:

■ Leeds City Region – with two boards, each responsible for setting direction and delivering different aspects of a joint economic plan: the City Region Leaders Board, bringing together the leaders of the eleven partner councils, and the City Region Local Enterprise Partnership Board, which has equal business/local authority representation;

63 Growth Deals – Initial Guidance for Local Enterprise Partnerships HM GovernmentJuly 2013

64 Evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Local Growth, Local Enterprise Partnerships & Enterprise Zones Inquiry: Rising to the challenge – how LEPs can deliver local growth strategies CEDOS/ADEPT July 2013


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■ Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP – where the plan outlined in the Greater Birmingham project report66 is to establish a Supervisory Board of the elected local authority leaders, which will empower the LEP Board through formal decision-making powers and a scheme of delegated authority. The aim is to provide clear political accountability for the management of the Local Growth Fund. It will operate a cabinet style of accountability and will be a formal governance structure between a joint committee and a combined authority;

■ Humber LEP – where the four local authorities in the Humber LEP are to create a formally constituted Joint Committee, to be known as the Humber Leadership Board, to provide strategic decision making on all economic and employment related matters;

■ Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP – which has a board on which business and local authority members are equally represented, with Buckinghamshire County Council as the accountable body, Buckinghamshire Business First (BBF), a countywide business organisation providing the LEP Secretariat and Buckinghamshire Advantage, being developed as a local delivery vehicle jointly owned by Buckinghamshire County Council, four district councils and BBF;

■ Greater Lincolnshire LEP – where Lincolnshire County Council, as account-able body for the LEP, has a legal responsibility to scrutinise schemes whose expenditure runs through the council but recognises that its role is to support and enable the LEP’s work, and avoid potentially stifling it. The Council is exploring its role in this context, and it intends to adopt the following approach:

● assess the added value that having a LEP brings to Lincolnshire;

● receive six-monthly reports into progress of the LEP’s funding;

● ensure major projects of over £5 million to be funded by the LEP have robust plans in place to achieve their intended benefits.

CASE STUDY

Humber

Emerging governance structureThe Hull and Humber City Deal67, covers the area of the four local authorities that make up the Humber LEP68. In this, partners have recognised a clear role for the LEP in providing strategic leadership in driving forward the growth of the Humber economy and the role of the local authorities in ensuring accountability and effective combined decision making. Although governance arrangements have still to be finalised, the proposed structure is:

● Humber Leadership Board – to be formally constituted as a joint committee of the four Humber local authorities to provide strategic decision making of all economic and employment related sub-regional matters. There will be underpinning governance arrangements to enable the Board to discharge its role and responsibilities and in exercise of the relevant statutory powers delegated collectively by the four authorities. The Leadership Board will represent the combined views of the Humber authorities supporting and where appropriate challenging the Humber LEP in respect of its City Deal responsibilities.

● Humber LEP – will have the leadership role in driving forward the economic growth of the Humber economy including the work on the Hull & Humber City Deal and providing strategic oversight in delivering the ambitions for the Humber estuary. The Humber LEP will determine: how the City Deal is delivered; how the associated funds are spent; and the commissioning arrangements that support funding decisions and allocations, supported by the Leadership Board.

66 The Greater Birmingham Project: The Path to Local Growth Greater Birmingham & Solihull LEP March 2013

67 Hull and Humber City Deal signed in December 2013

68 East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Hull City Council, North Lincolnshire Council and North East Lincolnshire Council

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CASE STUDY

Leeds City Region

Governance arrangementsThe governance arrangements have been developed to boost economic performance and ensure democratic accountability to Leeds City Region residents. There are two boards, each responsible for setting direction and delivering different aspects of a joint economic plan:

● Leeds City Region Leaders Board;

● Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership Board.

These Boards are supported by a series of expert panels, responsible for overseeing policy development and project delivery in specific areas.

The Leeds City Region Leaders Board, established as a legally constituted Joint Committee in 2007, brings together the elected leaders of the eleven partner councils to take strategic decisions on behalf of the City Region. It sets direction and oversees delivery in the following areas:

● transport;

● housing, regeneration and planning;

● transition to a green economy (led jointly with the LEP Board).

The LEP Board, which has equal business/local authority representation, brings together the public and private sectors, working to a shared vision for economic growth. It oversees work on:

● business, innovation and growth – including activity to boost international trade and investment;

● employment and skills;

● transition to a green economy (led jointly with the Leaders Board).

The City Region is proposing to develop its governance model further through the creation of a West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

6.35 With LEPs varying in size and circumstances, there can and should be no one-size-fits-all approach. In two LEPs which cover several county and unitary authority areas delegated models are being considered:

■ South East LEP – which is moving towards a federated model where 85% of local growth funding would be devolved to 3 broad local areas on a per capita basis, with most of the prioritisation and programme development being agreed with the LEP and being done by the local areas; and 15% retained centrally for pan-LEP actions;

■ Derby/Derbyshire & Nottingham/Nottinghamshire LEP – where there is a proposal for partial delegation of EU-SIF and Local Growth Funds to the Derby and Derbyshire Economic Prosperity Board and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Economic Prosperity Committee. Exactly how this will operate in detail is the subject of ongoing and intensive discussions.

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LEP Boundaries

6.36 Lord Heseltine had proposed that LEP boundary overlaps should be removed so that there is a single partnership for every part of England. He argued that just as neighbouring local authorities do not overlap but come together on common issues, LEPs should evolve to follow the same principle. In its response to Lord Heseltine, the Government decided that notwithstanding the number of LEP overlaps, it would follow the principle that the determination of LEP bound-aries should rest with local partnerships. The initial guidance on Growth Deals states that if LEPs decide they wish to change their boundaries they should write to Ministers for agreement as soon as possible and that proposals should follow the same criteria that were in the original invitation to civic and business leaders in June 2010.

6.37 Although there are boundary overlap issues in a number of areas, the response to the 2013 ADEPT/CEDOS member survey question: “Are there/are there likely to be any plans to propose boundary changes for LEPs in your area?” was a largely universal ‘No’. Examples of LEPs putting in place arrangements to over-come issues are:

■ Greater Lincolnshire/Humber LEPs – Where there are regular meetings between the senior officers of the two LEPs, and meetings of the chairs when appropriate;

■ Northamptonshire/South East Midlands LEPs – where there is a memo-randum of understanding between the two LEPs to ensure they work closely together on areas of mutual interest and which will benefit both areas;

■ Buckinghamshire Thames Valley/South East Midlands LEPs – where the two LEPs have a statement of co-operation and partnership, agreeing to work together on aspects of their functional economic areas that will benefit from a collaborative approach.

6.38 Nevertheless, there clearly are significant issues in some areas and LEPs will need to keep the areas they cover under review. Overlapping boundary issues are likely to intensify with the advent of more City Deals and LEP Growth Deals, a point made by ADEPT in its response to Lord Heseltine’s review: “there is a need to avoid a situation where local Growth Deals overlap with surrounding county and unitary council areas making it more difficult to align major funding and programmes, and increasing the need for new, over-complex, duplicating and costly governance”69. This is also referred to by a respondent to the 2013 member survey, who said that Growth Deal arrangements should avoid overlap-ping boundaries because of the confusion it creates for businesses and inves-tors and the bureaucracy that would result, arguing that it would be better for neighbouring areas to work together where it makes sense to do so through informal and formal arrangements.

RECOMMENDATION LEPs must keep the areas they cover and their boundaries under review, especially where they overlap with neighbouring LEPs.

69 Views on the Government Response to Lord Heseltine’s Review ADEPT May 2013

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The next phase of LEP development

6.39 With Strategic Economic Plans and Local Growth Deals ahead, LEPs are entering a new phase of development. Inevitably it has taken time for LEPs, as new structures, to get up and running and operate effectively, especially as the changes to Government local growth policy since 2010 have been particularly radical involving, as the National Audit Office (NAO) has pointed out “the almost complete removal of existing structures and funding for local growth, both locally and regionally, and their replacement with new structures and funding”70. Equally, as the NAO has observed, the change from RDAs to LEPs was the latest in a sequence of changes to local growth policy over a number of decades in which structures and funding regimes have often been replaced by new schemes.

6.40 This time things need to be different. Now that they are established, making progress and achieving things, LEPs need to have a period of stability. The aim should be to seek cross-party agreement and support to enable LEPs to have the confidence that they will have continuity and certainty of support and funding from Government and local authorities. Within Government, the NAO has raised concerns about a lack of coordination of the various local growth initiatives, each of which has its own governance arrangements involving several Departments and has pointed out that “local bodies have to coordinate a range of individual initiatives with different objectives, funding arrangements, timetables and reporting requirements”71. The recent establishment of the joint Departmental LEP team is welcomed. This must be built upon to achieve a coor-dinated approach across Government with consistent support and engagement across Departments.

RECOMMENDATION Now they are established and making progress, LEPs need to have stability - Government should aim to achieve cross-party agreement to give LEPs continuity and certainty of support and funding.

RECOMMENDATION Within Government, the establishment of the joint LEP team is welcomed and should be built upon to achieve a coordinated approach across Government with consistent support and engagement across Departments.

6.41 The role of local authorities in delivering the local growth agenda will continue to be crucial. However, whilst local authorities across the country are prioritising economic growth, the problems they face as a result of funding cuts in the context of competing local service priorities must not be underestimated. If they are to continue to provide the current level of operational support and funding to LEPs, local authorities need a period of financial stability. In addition, if they are to be able to continue to invest in growth, there is a need for a real move to fiscal devolution accompanied by the necessary freedoms and flexibilities.

6.42 Local authorities need to have the freedom to explore alternative means of raising finance to invest in local growth and give local areas the scope to design solutions that meet their individual needs and circumstances in a way that nationally designed programmes cannot do. Freedoms should include greater flexibility on borrowing for example through tax increment financing and the use of bond finance – in connection with which Government should support the Local Government Association’s initiative in developing plans for the creation of an independent body to raise bonds from the commercial market.


71 ibid.

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6.43 Fiscal devolution must cover all areas of England with both city and county areas treated fairly and with proper recognition of their important economic contributions. Devolution must extend beyond London and the core cities, vitally important as they are, to cover this country’s mid-size cities and its county areas. Research by the Centre for Cities has shown that in 2011, England’s 26 mid-sized cities with populations between 250,000 – 500,000 have a combined population of 8.9 million with their Gross Value Added amounting to 14% of England’s total. Equally, the areas covered by England’s county councils must be recognised for their economic importance and not seen as just hinterlands of city economies. Research for the County Council’s Network has shown that they contain 43% of England’s jobs and generate over 50% of this country’s Gross Value Added outside London.

6.44 If fiscal devolution excludes areas outside London and the core cities, there will be a considerable risk of increased inequality between local areas, increased regional imbalance and uncertainty for the business community, which could hold back economic growth both locally and nationally.

RECOMMENDATION Local authorities need to have a period of Government funding stability if they are to be able to continue their current level of funding and support to LEPs in the context of competing local service priorities.

RECOMMENDATION Fiscal devolution accompanied by the necessary freedoms and flexibilities is needed to enable local authorities to explore alternative means of finance to invest in local growth and give local areas the scope to provide solutions that meet their individual needs and circumstances.

RECOMMENDATION Fiscal devolution must cover all areas of England with both city and county areas treated fairly and with proper recognition of their important economic contributions.

A challenging period ahead

6.45 With Strategic Economic Plans to be finalised, local Growth Deals to be negoti-ated, the Local Growth Fund to come on stream in 2015 and a General Election to be held in the same year, the period ahead for LEPs is both challenging and uncertain and developments will need to be kept under ongoing review.

This report has been developed for CEDOS and ADEPT by Derek Walker Consultancy Ltd with the active involvement of Strategic Directors and Heads of Economic Development in City, County and Unitary authorities throughout England, including providing examples and case studies from their areas.

© CEDOS/ADEPT February 2014

Design by Aequalis Communications tel. 020 7100 3969

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