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Posted by Nick Hope, Senior Researcher, NLGN on September 9th, 2010

Today NLGN launched the Enterprise Partnership Forum. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are the talk of the town, and indeed many cities across the country. 56 LEP bids have been made to central government and there is huge excitement about the prospects they offer.

It would seem that the rather “techy” topic of sub-national economic governance is even at the front of the minds of the Coalition Leadership, with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg saying in an interview today that “Local Enterprise Partnerships are precisely designed to act as a catalyst for private sector growth from the bottom up that creates jobs”.

Ministers are clearly putting a great deal of hope in LEPs having a real impact on the ground. These new “supra-local” or “sub-regional” partnerships are a central plank of the Government’s plans to “rebalance the economy” and stimulate private sector growth. But at today’s Enterprise Partnership Forum launch, attended by over sixty experts from local government and the private sector, concerns were expressed about how effective LEPs will be if they are not launched on the right trajectory.

The challenges and fears attendees raised focused predominately around two core areas:

• Natural Economic Areas: If LEP geography does not match functional economic footprints well and are built primarily on institutional convenience will they operate at the optimal spatial level? Does this matter and what challenge and push back will Whitehall provide on this?
• Functions: Is the centre really willing to “let go” of powers and let them fall to LEPs? If not, what levers will LEPs have to realise the outcomes that the Coalition Government wants?

These are just some of the many questions that are being asked by local authorities, well established sub-regional and city-region partnerships, academics, business leaders and think tank policy wonks. Many are waiting with bated breath for the answers from civil servants and ministers.

Perhaps the most profound point made at today’s event came from a Council Chief Executive who asked “What if this is it?” He suggested that central government might not really answer many of the questions that are being posed and instead allow a far more permissive approach than many are anticipating. There might also not really be many new powers put on the table for these local collaborations or a new systemic relationship between localities in LEPs and Whitehall emerging from the Government. Just maybe there will barely be a relationship at all.