Richard Garlick,
Regen.net,
29 June 2010
The public-private partnerships with which the coalition government intends to replace the regional development agencies will have to fund their own day-to-day running costs, the Government said today.
The announcement was made in a letter sent today to council and business leaders about Local Enterprise Partnerships by business secretary Vince Cable and communities secretary Eric Pickles.
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Earlier this month both Cable and the Prime Minister said that, in areas of the country where councils and businesses backed RDAs, they would be able to retain them more or less as they were, albeit in a rebadged form. But the news that LEPs are to have no dedicated funding for running costs will cast doubt on those assurances.
The Government’s letter also made it clear that it expects many of the RDAs' functions to in future be "led nationally", and not performed by LEPs. These include inward investment and the fostering of innovation. Functions it expects LEPs to cover include: planning, housing, employment, local transport, infrastructure and, in some areas, tourism.
It seems to send slightly contradictory messages about LEPs' role in business support, saying on the one hand that this is an area that it expects to be led nationally, but on the other that LEPs will tackle issues such as enterprise and small business start-ups.
It says that it expects LEPs to be made up of groups of upper tier local authorities, but that the Government "is flexible about how large they will be", and that there will be no objection to LEPs covering a "functional economic area" that replicates RDA boundaries if that is what the partners prefer.
It says: "We are also considering how bidding arrangements for government funds will operate within the new system".
The economic development white paper will come out in July, it says, and legislation to abolish RDAs and enable LEPs should be introduced to Parliament in the autumn.
Councils and businesses are invited to send outline proposals for LEPs to the Government by 6 Sept.
To see the letter in full, click here.
