New LEP ‘to be led by business’

A SENIOR business figure must lead the new local enterprise partnership for the Leeds City Region if it is to have credibility, according to the interim chairman.

Coun Stephen Houghton said the LEP, one of four in the region expected to take over functions currently performed by regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, had already begun the hunt for a permanent chairman and expected to have them in place early in the New Year.

He also set out the early thinking on the role LEPs will perform and the way they will function.

The leader of Barnsley Council, who was made interim chairman of the new LEP, insisted business would take a leading role in its work and this would be demonstrated by the choice of his permanent replacement.

He said: “We do want to get business engaged and having a business chair would be seen favourably by the Government as showing we are serious about business engagement.

“Clearly the candidate will have a strong commitment to the Leeds City Region, someone who has the skills to bring together different aspects of both business and the public sector – a trick that’s not easy to pull – someone with a strong leadership track record in the private sector and someone prepared to carry a high profile and be prepared to be an ambassador for the region.”

Coun Houghton said the move away from regional development agencies was a progression from the establishment of City Region’s under the last government which recognised that economic activity does not correspond to political boundaries.

But while the LEPs would need to have “streamlined efficient processes” to keep bureacracy to a minimum, he argued there were areas such as European funding that might be most effectively managed regionally.

Consideration is being given to creating a single body to perform those functions and to carry out other administrative tasks to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort across the four LEPs. One group has proposed creating a Yorkshire Enterprise Partnership to carry out this role.

However, he had a clear message for sceptics who suspect LEPs will simply be regional development agencies in a slightly altered form.

“We are not looking to recreate Yorkshire Forward by another name. This is a very different model to what has gone before,” he said.

With the Government yet to set out in detail what it expects of LEPs and how they will be funded, Coun Houghton said the partnership’s plans were still in their early stages but it would be seeking the devolution of powers in areas such as transport, work and skills from Whitehall to Yorkshire.

The partnership also wants to take a leading role in co-ordinating bids to the new £1bn Regional Growth Fund.

Coun Houghton welcomed the commitment of money but expressed “serious concern” that by inviting bids the Government would be pitching areas with significant needs against each other.