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Independent think tank, the New Local Government Network yesterday (Thur) launched a new forum for Local Enterprise Partners (LEPs). Following this week’s announcement that the Government has received 56 proposals to set up a LEP, the Enterprise Forum will deliver strategic representation on behalf of prospective partnerships and  offer peer support and policy making advice.

Announcing the Forum in front of an audience of over sixty senior representatives from the public and private sector, NLGN Deputy Director Anna Turley said that LEPs could provide a “strong, decisive and strategic economic leadership needed at the most appropriate spatial level and play a key role in driving economic growth and reducing the deficit”.

She said that the Forum would initially focus on developing thinking on how LEPs could work in practice, including sharpening the clarity of what powers would be held by the partnerships; assessing the commitment from Whitehall departments outside BIS and CLG; looking at the role of business in providing leadership and analysing the affect of European funding opportunities in a post-RDA environment.

Anna Turley said:

“LEPs represent a real opportunity to redesign geographies around proper functional economic footprints and support local economies through the wave of public sector cuts. Our new Forum will be at the forefront of sharing good practice and expertise between different partnerships around the country and acting as one voice when negotiating with central government”.

“We will also be leading on new thinking on how to develop local partnerships, based on our long-term research work on sub-national governance. The Forum will also ensure that LEPs deliver real devolution and localism and resist any attempts to draw powers back to the centre”.

Other speakers at the launch included Alan Harding, Director, Institute for Political and

Economic Governance, Cllr Steve Houghton, Chair of the Leeds City Region Board and Mike Cherry, Chair of Policy, Federation of Small Businesses.