THE organisation set up to win badly-needed private-sector jobs for Merseyside is stuck in the slow lane according to a damning report.
The performance of the Liverpool City Region “local enterprise partnerships” (LEP) was sharply criticised – exactly one year after it was given the go-ahead by the government.
The Centre for Cities, a leading thinktank, said the LEP had:
Failed to appoint a board approved by the government.
Failed to publish a long-term strategy for investment and employment growth.
Failed to launch a consultation on that strategy – or even announce “interim priorities”.
Failed to set up a dedicated website to make key information “publicly and easily accessible”.
Liverpool City Region was among the vast majority of the first 24 LEPs that came in for criticism. Just two – Leeds City Region and Coventry and Warwickshire – have published strategies.
Cheshire and Warrington have a board in place and have consulted on priorities but have yet to draw up a long-term prospectus, or set up a website, the report said.
The report concluded: “There is much talk of being ‘open for business’, but detail about what lies behind these declarations of intent is often lacking.”
And Andrew Carter, the organisation’s director of policy, said: “While a handful of LEPs are doing really well, many are struggling to come close to meeting the objectives that were set to them by government this time last year.”
The Liverpool City Region LEP has also failed to find a chairman after Sir Terry Leahy, the former Tesco chief executive, turned it down.
But Ged Fitzgerald, chief executive of Liverpool City Council and secretariat of the LEP, hit back saying: “We have already achieved many of the milestones outlined in this report.
“We have a shadow board which is recognised by government, have consulted widely with the private sector on our strategy and have established a set of priorities. We are also about to publish our full strategy and launch LEP and Enterprise Zone websites.”
LEPs have come under fire from the day they were created, quickly branded “toothless talking shops” by the Tory-friendly Institute of Directors.
The critics focused on the lack of funding and of powers – in sharp contrast to the doomed regional development agencies (RDAs) they were intended to replace.
The Centre for Cities said the LEPs appeared to be primarily a “conduit for government growth initiatives” rather than carrying out their own work.
As well as enterprise zones, those initiatives will include a new £500m “Growing Places Fund” to kick-start stalled infrastructure projects. LEPs are expected to bid for funds.
