TheBusinessDesk.com Comment

ONE of the conceits in the movie ‘Inception’ –  this summer’s blockbuster – is the notion that dreams slow down time, so that a week in a dream is but a few seconds in reality.

Those trying to pull together a West Midlands consensus around Local Enterprise Partnerships will be wishing they were able to apply the chronological brakes, because September 6 is looking an increasingly impossible deadline for achieving unanimity.

And if yesterday’s conference on LEPs organised by Business Voice WM is anything to go by, the process is already distinctly more nightmare than dream.

What was billed – perhaps prematurely – as a gathering of businesses and politicians looking to take stock and discuss the emerging structures, responsibilities and geographies of LEPs ended up confusing more attendees than it informed. The commodity that business values above all others – clarity – was notably absent, as was that other rare flower in this region – leadership.

BusinessVoice WM unveiled its blueprint  for a ‘West Midlands Enterprise Partnership’, described as an ‘over-arching’ plan for a single LEP to cover the whole of the old AWM patch. This LEP wouldn’t want anything to do with transport, housing or local economy, unlike Birmingham Chamber’s proposal, published last week, which does, and suggests an LEP that excludes Coventry and the shires. Last night, a paper from the Black Country Chamber emerged that indicated it favoured a go-it-alone strategy that turned its back on Birmingham.

Meanwhile, one of the few local authority representatives at the event, Cllr Philip Atkins, revealed that the West Midlands councils he represents had all but decided to create LEPs based on six sub-regional areas. He, rather patronisingly, told delegates not to worry about such a minor thing as structures at this stage, as what was really important was what LEPs were there to achieve, rather than their format.

Some puzzled business people thought the ‘what’ was fairly obvious – improved skills, innovation and finance for a start. Without a firmer idea of how LEPs will be constituted – and where they will be, many felt they were being offered a pig in a poke.

Businesses are being urged on all sides to ‘roll their sleeves up’ and ‘get involved’. In what, exactly? Another acronym-riddled talking shop deadened by the dismal hand of local authority bureaucracy? Or a sunlit upland of vision of purpose, a business-led can-do movement whose lightness of touch is balanced by the impact of its achievements?

We don’t know, frankly, because in three hours of speeches and questions, nobody thought to paint a picture of what an LEP might actually look like.

Never mind that we might not have liked everything about it, at least we’d have a point of reference.

The fault does not lie entirely at the feet of the good and honest people who are at least trying to get the train moving in the West Midlands (and some are bravely sticking their necks out further than others). The hand grenades being regularly lobbed in from DCLG by the pugilistic Eric Pickles are to blame, as is apparent timidity of Vince Cable, whose BIS train set is clearly keeping him too busy to walk among the great unwashed in the regions.

But crying foul is unlikely to move Big Eric, so the region just needs to get on with the job.

That job, in our view, is for all local authorities in the former ‘West Midlands’ region to call a temporary halt to their Balkan plotting (yes, we mean you Solihull, and turn around and pay attention at the back, please, Walsall) and for all leaders and chief execs to meet immediately with Business Voice WM and agree the pan-regional economic objectives that all can sign up to. The disparate Chambers need to come together and do the same, using Business Voice WM as their conduit.

All subsequent decisions about which LEPs to form or join should be informed by this process. In some cases it may make sense for a sub region to go it alone, but at least it can demonstrate to government that the decision was made within a consistent framework, thereby minimising the damage to the whole region.

Meanwhile, more business organisations and businesses themselves should stop sniping from the sidelines and find the courage to articulate what they actually want from this process. Yesterday’s conference was full of laments about the failures of the past, the disappointment of the present, but precious little about what businesses thought would really make a difference.

We’ve a lot to do, and precious little time to do it in – the whole of the region needs to wake up – now.