By Judy Hirst | 10 July 2013
Labour is set to announce proposals to revamp Local Enterprise Partnerships across England to improve their ability to help deliver economic growth, shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna has revealed.
Speaking to CIPFA's annual conference today, Umunna said the party would make an announcement tomorrow about plans to reform the role of the 39 partnerships, which bring together councils and businesses to boost growth.
He said the party welcomed the approach outlined in Lord Heseltine’s growth review to devolve more funding to the LEPs, but the government's decision to award just £2bn a year to a single funding pot following the Spending Review had not backed up its own rhetoric with action.
Umunna claimed that ‘many people in government regret the decision to abolish Regional Development Agencies’, and this had led to many of the current difficulties with infrastructure implemention. However, a Labour government would retain the bodies, he said, introducing reforms to the partnerships to allow them to play a bigger role.
‘The government is clearly trying to turbo-charge them into something like the old Regional Development Agencies, but has not given them the powers or resources to do so.'
Labour would also take steps to transform the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, he said. Preliminary findings of a review being conducted by former transport secretary Lord Adonis into the workings of the ministry suggest there are many serious problems to be addressed.
These include a very high staff turnover rate, an extremely London-centric focus, poor links with the business community and worryingly low levels of accuracy. Such issues were not confined to BIS, he added.
'I am incredibly ambitious for the role of BIS. We want to turn it into the best business department in the world.'
'There needs to be a whole government approach to issues like procurement, innovation and regulation, and the shadow cabinet is working on how to roll this out right across government.’
There also needed to be a Business Investment Bank –‘a proper commercial one, not just a few desks somewhere’ – to help develop state support for industry, he added.
‘We need a national conversation about the role of government. The Right only sees the public sector as a drain, a burden, and an "enemy of enterprise". This is very unsophisticated and outdated.’
Labour’s vision, by contrast, involves ‘robust, entrepreneurial government working in partnership with the private sector, and delivering a modern industrial strategy.’ Most successful economies have sustained government investment in business, and see the public sector as an ally of enterprise, he said.
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