Local enterprise partnership

Delivering growth: How!?

After a first read of the Strategy for Growth document the question posed by Jack Hargreaves comes to mind

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Published May 2, 2013, in Opinion


Just How do you deliver jobs and growth? It’s a question George Osborne has been struggling with – closer to home so it would seem has the Board of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP).

As Paul Dale points out in his piece, the document makes a bold opening.

“We know historically there has been no shortage of economic strategies – yet none have fully delivered what they have promised. We will deliver.”

It’s the journey which is the difference, we are told. The

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Government must back LEPs with five-year funding deals, say MPs

Commons committee criticses Whitehall 'confusion' over regeneration bodies

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Published April 26, 2013, in LEPs


Adrian Bailey MP

Adrian Bailey MP

A Minister should be given responsibility for overseeing Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Government must commit to long term financial backing for LEPs, a Commons committee has suggested.

The also said  LEPs across the country could not fulfil their regeneration role without the “certainty and security” of a five-year core funding deal from Whitehall.

Committee chairman Adrian Bailey, the MP for West Bromwich West, said: “LEPs help drive the local economic growth on which national growth relies.

“They are expected to deliver long-term growth. To do this they require the confidence to make long-term investments. The current funding commitments fail to provide this. We urge the Government to support LEPs in delivering long-term growth by committing to the levels of their core funding for the five years from 2015.”

The committee is urging the Government to move away from funding LEPs on a “one size-fits-all basis” towards

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Could the age of Metro Mayors be upon us?

Danie Crowe of the Localis think tank says 'single pots' for LEPs demand a new form of democratic accountability in the regions

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Published April 7, 2013, in Opinion


Washed away by the Budget headlines of pints, petrol and pump-priming a property-owning democracy to help jolt Britain’s zombie economy back to life, the real domestic story of last week was the Government’s response to the Heseltine Review. Hidden away in the detail there can be found what might just be the embryonic refashioning of a

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Tory point-scoring on the LEP is music to Clancy’s ears

Commons pantomime hands ammunition to Bore's leadership rival

By:
Published March 19, 2013, in Opinion


Michael Fabricant (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Amusing exchange in the Commons yesterday, as bouffant-haired Lichfield Tory Michael Fabricant feigned amnesia to deliver combative local government minister Eric Pickles an opportunity to have a swipe at Sir Albert Bore:

 

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): I spent Sunday afternoon at the launch of the Heseltine review under the auspices of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership, chaired by Andy Street, whom I know you know, Mr Speaker. It was a real pleasure to see the leader of Birmingham city council, whose name I have temporarily forgotten-no, it is Sir Albert Bore-a Labour councillor, support this. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a real step forward for the Midlands, and will he soon go up to the Midlands to help with this exciting project?

Mr Pickles: Obviously, I regret that my hon. Friend forgot the name of Sir Albert Bore-an important man in local government who I am pleased to say seems to have changed his tune. He was predicting disaster; he was predicting that all kinds of things would go terribly wrong-yet here we are, with him co-operating with the Government. That is a marvellous sign for the future.

 

Music to the ears of Bore’s city Labour leadership rival John Clancy, who is already branding the LEP a Tory creation.

 

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George Osborne: ‘I’m Backing Birmingham’

Chancellor will do 'everything possible' to support 40,000 jobs enterprise zone

By:
Published February 22, 2013, in LEPs, Politics


georgeThe Chancellor of the Exchequer has given his personal backing to an initiative that places Birmingham at the forefront of a Government drive to reignite struggling regional economies.

George Osborne made it clear that he would do everything possible to support the new city centre enterprise zone – a unique investment vehicle that, it is claimed, will deliver 40,000 jobs through regenerating 26 key sites including Paradise Circus and the Children’s Hospital.

Mr Osborne heaped fulsome praise on the city council and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, the two bodies responsible for overseeing and running the zone.

Birmingham had “got its act together” in a way that other cities had not, the Chancellor said.

The enterprise zone is the latest example in a long list of efforts over many years to

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