Bernard Ginns: Enterprising leadership needed to boost economy

I am referring, of course, to the new Local Enterprise Partnership for Leeds. These so-called LEPs are the coalition Government's idea and are designed to fill the strategic void following the abolition of regional development agencies in 2012.

Ministers Eric Pickles and Vince Cable have written to local authorities and business organisations inviting them to submit proposals on how best to support economic development in their local areas.

Leeds City Council's plans, I'm informed, are being written up by Paul Rogerson, the outgoing chief executive. I would expect Tom Riordan, the incoming chief executive and former head of Yorkshire Forward, to have a hand in the proposals as well, given that he will be working very closely with the LEP in his new role.

The government has said LEPs will be central to rebalancing the economy towards the private sector and should be responsible for issues such as planning and housing, local transport and infrastructure priorities, employment and enterprise and the transition to the low carbon economy.

They will also be responsible for supporting business start-ups and should work closely with universities and local colleges.

So that's the outline. No more details are available.

However, I believe that the Leeds plan will borrow some existing ideas from the city region pilot project and will likely cover a similar area – three million people, 100,000 businesses and a 50bn economy – give or take some changes.

Given that local councils are facing massive spending cuts, I expect that plans for LEPs across Yorkshire will contain ambitious bids for powers and responsibilities, which could pose a threat to plans for a Yorkshire-wide business organisation. Plans for such an organisation are under way and have the quality of being genuinely business-led.

There is strong support for the argument that Yorkshire needs a loud voice of its own and that some functions – such as inward investment, tourism, access to finance – would be better performed at regional level.

Could the wider interests of Yorkshire could be neglected if local councils are plotting audacious power grabs?

That's the background. Now, who would like to stake their reputation on entering this febrile playground and chair the Leeds LEP? There is lots of speculation and lots of names of capable people being bandied around.

I have decided against naming names at this stage – you could probably guess half of them – at least until we get some more sensible detail about what form the new organisation will take and what its powers and responsibilities will be.

There is of course a real danger that the LEP will have no real spending or decision-making power so it is debatable whether it will have any power at all.

It could become just another talking shop and what sort of serious business person would want to be associated with that?

I will happily speculate about what kind of qualities might be needed for the role, assuming the organisation does have some clout and that this is not just a centralising government stitch-up.

From 2012-13, it will be competing for cash from the new regional growth fund, headed by Michael Heseltine, so the individual concerned will need to have some heavyweight credentials to compete with big beasts like that.

He or she will need to have some proven experience of running a big business. After all, we are talking about economic development being the top priority underpinning all this political debate.

The Leeds city region is reckoned to be the second biggest economic area outside of London so it is very important to UK plc that the private sector is given as much encouragement as possible. The individual must know how to create the conditions and environment for growth. It would also be helpful if the chair of the LEP is already a respected business figure in the region. Given that we are on the slow road to full economic recovery, there can be no luxury of a long induction period.

And it is vital that the individual possesses the skills necessary to get the best out of the city council. That in itself could be an difficult task, but it should be made easier with business-friendly Tom Riordan in position. The most important quality has to be diplomacy. We are heading into tough times with some difficult decisions ahead. It will take a special kind of leader to keep everyone on side during the coming years.

On the positive side, Yorkshire is home to some of the best business brains in Britain, so in that respect I am optimistic.