Call to hand LEPs real powers to boost economy
MINISTERS have to hand substantial powers to local enterprise partnerships if they want the new bodies to help rebalance the economy, according to former Yorkshire Forward chief executive Tom Riordan.
He was speaking at an event last night considering the Coalition Government’s first 100 days in office organised by law firm DLA Piper and Financial Leeds.
Now chief executive at Leeds City Council, Mr Riordan was joined on a panel with GSM Group chairman Barry Dodd, Financial Leeds chief executive Howard Kew and Mike Collier, chairman of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
The debate, chaired by the BBC’s Jon Sopel, focused heavily on the Government’s decision to abolish regional development agencies such as Yorkshire Forward and replace them with new local enterprise partnerships bringing local authorities and business together.
Mr Riordan said: “I am very proud of what Yorkshire Forward achieved. It’s done some really dramatic things with the economy – we beat the South East last year in terms of foreign direct investment.
“But we never really had the opportunity to be a creature of this place. We were always a creature of Whitehall. This is an opportunity to say ‘you can’t rebalance the economy from London. If you want us to rebalance the economy give us the tools to do it here.'”
Read James Reed’s blog: Private sector concern at public sector cuts
The Government has yet to make clear what funds will be available to support the work of LEPs, aside from a £1bn Regional Growth Fund, but they are expected to be slim. The forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review will also see significant cuts to public spending in the region.
Mr Dodd, a leading figure in the proposal to create a Yorkshire Enterprise Partnership – carrying out key functions at a regional level – insisted the new situation facing regions should be seen positively.
“I don’t think it is going to be bad, I think it is going to be a great opportunity to do things differently,” he said. Mr Dodd identified areas such as carbon capture as offering great potential to Yorkshire, adding: “We have the best international brand outside London, it’s called Yorkshire. If we can put the right package together to attract inward investment we could do better than we do now which is already a vast improvement on what went before.”
Mr Kew described the Government’s decision to abolish RDAs as “creating a vacuum” but argued that the Leeds City Region had an advantage by working together at an early stage although he expressed concern at how long that coalition could stick together.
The debate saw transport improvements such as a faster and more reliable rail links to London and Manchester identified as important to the future economic development of the region.
Mr Collier, a former chief executive of regional development agency ONE North East, said public sector cuts might make it difficult but the region “shouldn’t throw our hand in”.
“It needs clear heads, it needs leadership and it needs preparedness to work together and network together. I do believe there are aspects of the economy that can be developed on a city region basis. There are other initiatives that are patently regional, such as tourism,” he said.
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