Tomorrow, 3rd September, is LEP day in the UK.
Let me explain. Since the change in government here during the Spring the coalition, led firmly by the Conservatives and with little real influence from the Liberal Democrat Party, have engaged on a de-construction exercise of the public sector. This would have probably happened anyway given that the Labour Party had spent so much money - even they didn't realise exactly how much - on boosting public sector employment and influence over things economic in the past 10 years or so.
A little diagram will suffice - the expansion of public sector employment in total employment 1998 to 2008. A jump that equates to 1.3 million more people employed by public sector organisations. At some point during 2002 the public sector became the largest employer type in the UK economy, surpassing even 'distribution, hotels and restaurants' which has always been a big employing sector given the number of part time jobs that it provides.
'nuff said.
I will not be drawn into the debate on whether this was good, bad or indifferent. But the key thing right now is that the country cannot afford to employ such a large scale public sector workforce as the tax take from other activities is not high enough and fewer people are now in work in non-public sector organisations. Added to that, the government is finding it more difficult to borrow ever increasing amounts of money to fund such a public expansion in today's credit crunch climate.
So what about LEPers?
Local Economic Partnerships LEPs are the dynamic new buzzword on the block since the coalition government came into power. The LEP movement (don't look for any real movement.. not yet.. they're still drawing up their plans and Word documents!) is essentially a nice way of combining some powers from local authorities and other public sector organisations into (hopefully) smaller organisations that cover a large area somewhere between local and regional - i.e. cost cutting in the main.
There are plenty of reasons why this is a good idea - joint buying power will help drive down costs where the same work is required across a wider than local authority geography for example. The main and immediate casualties of the new LEPers will be the demise of the Regional Development Agencies, organisations that have had a massive allocation of money from the central government budget and who have been the focus of much criticism for the way in which they have operated / boosted staff numbers / become political / opened international offices / duplicated work of other organisations despite also ploughing (tens of) millions into each of the regions of England and Wales. It is unfortunately in vogue to give them a good kicking right now rather than assess the many things they did right in each region. And they did. But don't quote me on that one.
But there are also many reasons to be suspicious about LEPs becoming just a re-branding exercise rather than a re-construction. More of that in a later blog. Perhaps.
So why LEP Day?
3rd September is the first deadline set by government for the receipt of initial LEP plans. There are so many flavours coming out of the various parts of the country that it is impossible to see the new shape of economic development as yet. What is clear is that the government have been trying to make LEP authors work hard at defining what it is they want to do in future.
Some areas have found this very hard indeed, lacking clarity among groups of local bodies or simply lacking the intellect to put together anything but a document that contains all the buzzwords. This is exactly what a lot of public sector management staff have been busy (possibly the wrong word?) doing for far too long to be honest.
Other areas have everything in place already. Manchester, ever a pioneer in things economic development, were the first to announce a coalition of ten local authority areas and a Shadow Board to drive it forward within weeks of the call for LEP proposals.
One thing is for sure.
It's all change at Regeneration Grand Central...
