LEPs – living up to the hype? The changing framework for regional economic development and localism in the UK

From when the idea of local enterprise partnerships was first floated in the run-up to the May 2010 general election, there has been fervent discussion and steadfast work by the Coalition government to replace the nine regional development agencies of England with the new LEPS. Vince Cable MP called the decision to abolish the RDAs the Coalition’s “Maoist moment”. Thirteen years of work to establish a comprehensive system of regional development for England has since been abolished and abandoned. The philosophy and rationale for the establishment of the RDAs was set out in the 1997 white paper Building Partnerships for Prosperity: Sustainability, Growth, Competitiveness and Employment in the English Regions. Their main promoter was John Prescott MP, then deputy prime minister under the Blair government. This chapter examines whether LEPs are living up to the hype

Evidence submitted to the BIS Select Committee consultation on Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and the Regional Growth Fund (RGF)

The evidence summarised in this submission is based on the national research project: From Regionalism to Localism: Cross Country LEPs. The aim of this research is to monitor what steps are being taken by LEPs to support businesses to create jobs and support the development of local economies. The research explores the issues arising from the formation of the LEPs over their first three years, 2010-2013 and is monitoring the journey of the LEPs nationally. LEPs are the chief vehicle for economic development within the context of localism but are delivering national level initiatives, such as Enterprise Zones. Indeed, they have been set a considerable challenge – uniting business, public and community interests in a way that enables the economic regeneration and growth of local places. The research drills-down to focus on four particular ‘regions’: the North East; Yorkshire and the Humber; the West Midlands and the South West. Some of the project team’s initial and emerging research outputs are appended to this submission

After Regions: what next for local enterprise partnerships?

Standing out as an oddity in comparison to the convergence of policy across EU nations whereby the merits of regional apparatus – however defined – for administering development support appear to be accepted, the UK Government has abandoned England’s experiment with regionalism. Under the banner of localism, providing the thinnest of masks for swingeing public expenditure cuts, sub-national development activity (encompassing planning, regeneration, infrastructure development, enterprise support and spatial leadership) is in the throes of considerable economic shifts, policy flux and institutional upheaval (Ward & Hardy, 2012). This article attempts to address some of the questions posed in The regional lacuna: a preliminary map of the transition from Regional Development Agencies to Local Economic Partnerships (Pugalis, 2011) and helps to advance some of the points relating to the emerging sub-national development landscape published in recent issues of Regions (e.g. Bailey, 2011). The purpose is to take stock of policy developments underway by means of a post-regional sub-national review in order to outline the future development trajectory of Local Enterprise Partnerships

APPG on local growth, local enterprise partnerships and enterprise zones - memorandum of written evidence

The evidence summarised in this submission is based on the national research project: From Regionalism to Localism: Cross Country LEPs. The aim of this research is to monitor what steps are being taken by LEPs to support businesses to create jobs and support the development of local economies. The research explores the issues arising from the formation of the LEPs over their first three years, 2010-2013 and is monitoring the journey of the LEPs nationally. LEPs are the chief vehicle for economic development within the context of localism but are delivering national level initiatives, such as Enterprise Zones. Indeed, they have been set a considerable challenge – uniting business, public and community interests in a way that enables the economic regeneration and growth of local places. The research focuses on four particular ‘regions’: the North East; Yorkshire and the Humber; the West Midlands and the South West

Comparing the development of Local Industrial Strategies across the Northern Powerhouse: Key emerging issues

Will the UK Industrial Strategy deliver anything substantial to the North of England? This article examines the faltering steps taken to develop Local Industrial Strategies by Local Enterprise Partnerships and Mayoral Combined Authorities and argues Place Leadership and Industrial Strategy will both need to be substantially re-galvanised after COVID 19. It is also still not clear if a significant step change can be made by the Johnson Conservative government of 2019, which will have a major impact on Northern economies. Agencies’ capacity to intervene in the Northern economy and deliver is a major issue, alongside stronger leadership. Analytically the paper uses theory on Multi-Sectoral Collaboration and Place Leadership to show how uniqueness of place, past and current interpersonal connections and networks can facilitate or frustrate economic development. Place leaders must create institutional arrangements, seek agreement over visions, objectives and strategies, otherwise the lack of shared information, resources, activities and capabilities lead to ‘contestation’ over space and action. We analyse the levels of cohesion or contestation in four different localities as each develops a Local Industrial Strategy

Simultaneous high resolution meausurement of phonons and ionization created by particle interactions in a 60 g germanium crystal at 25 mK

We demonstrate simultaneous high energy resolution (rms≊800 eV) measurements of ionization and phonons created by particle interactions in a semiconductor crystal of macroscopic size (60 g germanium) at 25 mK. We present first studies of charge collection at biases below 1 V/cm, and find that, contrary to commonly held opinion, the full recoil energy of particle interactions is recovered as phonons when charge trapping is negligible. We also report an unanticipated correlation between charge collection and phonon energy at very low bias, and discuss this effect in terms of charge trapping

Measurement of ionization and phonon production by nuclear recoils in a 60 g crystal of germanium at 25 mK

We report on the first measurement of the absolute phonon energy and the amount of ionization produced by the recoil of nuclei and electrons in a 60 g germanium cyrstal at a temperature of ≊25 mK. We find good agreement between our results and previous measurements of ionization yield from nuclear recoils in germanium. Our device achieves 10:1 discrimination between neutrons and photons in the few keV energy range, demonstrating the feasibility of this technique for large reductions of background in searches for direct interactions of weakly interacting massive particle dark matter