Business leaders urged to ‘pick up pace’ of growth

DAVID Cameron’s new Enterprise Minister has ordered regional business leaders to “pick up the pace” of their economic plans after the Government bowed to calls for Local Enterprise Partnerships to receive funding from Whitehall.

Michael Fallon said yesterday the Government is “impatient for growth” beyond London and the South East, and revealed he has told every LEP chairman they must now start delivering a real boost to their local economy.

The LEPs were introduced as a replacement for the now-defunct regional development agencies such as Yorkshire Forward. There are currently 39 across England, including four in Yorkshire.

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Each LEP board is tasked with delivering growth in its local area, and is led by local businesses rather than the public sector.

Mr Fallon, who was promoted to Minister of State for Business and Enterprise in last month’s Government reshuffle, said many of the LEPs have been in place for well over a year - and now need to start delivering results.

“I met the LEP chairmen and indicated to them I want to see a significant step up in pace,” he said. “I want to be very clear now that the Government is impatient for growth. We want to see the economy growing more rapidly, particularly locally, outside London and the South East.

“I want them to step up the pace and get on with this now.

“Some of the (LEPs) are relatively new; others have been around for a year and a bit. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to require them to come up with a further plan.”

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Last month Ministers agreed to provide core funding to the LEPs after criticism they lack basic resources and are over-reliant on local councils for support.

Each LEP will receive £125,000 this year and £250,000-a-year from April, provided they can find match-funding from elsewhere.

“The whole point is that these are locally-driven organisations,” Mr Fallon said. “I thought it was right to help them demonstrate to their local business community that they weren’t creatures of local government.”

Mr Fallon, who was speaking at a hearing of the Business Select Committee, said he was open to suggestions for new powers to be handed to the LEPs over issues such as skills training.

“It’s for LEPs to tell us what they want to do,” he said.

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“One area they’re going to be looking at is – do they cover enough of the functions of economic development?

“You could easily see them having a very strong interest in skills in their area, for example, or indeed in the output from schools and colleges. These may well be things that LEPs want to talk to us about in the future.

“My vision of a successful LEP would certainly be that they identify all the barriers to growth, and that would include skills gaps in their local area - and gaps they have identified, for example, in infrastructure and the other things businesses need to grow.”