Questions raised over bodies responsible for delivering economic growth

The National Audit Office found local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) themselves did not believe they had the necessary resources or staff with the relevant expertise.

Its latest report raises concerns that levels of transparency over how taxpayer’s money is spent is “varied” across LEPs.

The NAO also warned the Government’s rules on how money is spent meant that some projects were supported even if others would deliver a bigger economic impact.

Yorkshire’s four LEPs, which bring together business leaders and councils, have together been promised more than a £1 billion from the Government through so-called ‘growth deals’ to spend on projects forecast to create or safeguard thousands of jobs across the region.

LEPs were set up by the Coalition Government in the wake of its decision to scrap regional development agencies such as Yorkshire Forward.

Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee of MPs, said: “LEPs need to have a stronger commitment to transparency. The majority of LEPs do not publish information on senior staff pay and 30 per cent do not have any form of independent scrutiny over investment decisions they make with taxpayer money.

“There is a real risk that the taxpayer will lose out if LEPs fail to deliver projects due to a lack of capacity. The NAO report shows that only five per cent of LEPs believe they have enough resources to deliver these projects and nearly 70 per cent said they did not have enough staff.

In separate statements, Yorkshire’s four LEPs all stressed they had taken measures to ensure accountability over spending.

Leeds City Region LEP chairman Roger Marsh said: “With the promise of further devolution for Leeds City Region on the table, this report from the National Audit Office’s contains some timely recommendations to ensure that taxpayers’ investment is spent as wisely and accountably as possible.

“Clearly, as the report acknowledges, the rapidly expanding role of LEPs in recent years, has presented challenges. From a standing start, we’ve put in place the capabilities and governance structures to take on board significant devolved funding and responsibilities and are now delivering an economic growth agenda that’s comparable to the former Regional Development Agency’s with a fraction of the resource.”

A Humber LEP spokeswoman said: “We are making good progress in the first year of the programme and report regularly on this, but will look closely at the NAO’s report to see if any improvements can be made to our processes.

“Following the confirmation of the next round of Growth Deals, we look forward to submitting another competitive bid on behalf of the local area.”

York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP chairman Barry Dodd said: ““We spent our full allocation of Local Growth Fund for 2015/16 against agreed Local Growth Deal projects utilising the resources that we have efficiently and effectively.

“We don’t have an underspend.”

Sheffield City Region LEP chairman Sir Nigel Knowles said: “We recognise that monitoring achievements against our ambitious goals is fundamental to our success and we take this very seriously - for example, we showed how Regional Growth Fund money could be better managed by local leaders, outperforming the national average, unlocking more growth and creating more jobs for local people.

“Devolved power brings decision making closer to the public private partnerships that can locally and regionally and create businesses, jobs and economic wealth. This is being better understood by business and inward investors.”