Introduction
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are partnerships between local authorities and local businesses to support local economic growth, established in 2010. They have a key role to play in assisting in the delivery of many important government policies to support local economic growth. There are 38 LEPs in England, each intended to cover a functional economic area. Through the Local Growth Fund, the government has committed £12 billion to local areas between 2015 and 2021; £9.1 billion of this is through Growth Deals with LEPs. The Department relies on their National Assurance Framework for LEPs to ensure that money is spent appropriately. The government also sees LEPs as key to its new industrial strategy.
Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Local Enterprise Partnership (GCGP LEP) consists of 15 separate local authorities, and covers all of Cambridgeshire along with districts in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire, plus the unitary authorities of Rutland and Peterborough. Concerns about the governance of GCGP LEP were raised locally in January 2017, and in March 2017 Mr Stephen Barclay MP raised these again in correspondence with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Foremost among Mr Barclay’s concerns was that the Chair of GCGP LEP might have benefited from investment of public funds in GCGP LEP’s area of operation. After receiving Mr Barclay’s concerns, the Department conducted a review of GCGP LEP. While this did not find evidence of misuse of public funds, the review did find that GCGP LEP’s assurance framework did not comply with national standards and that GCGP LEP was unable to respond effectively to Mr Barclay’s concerns. In March 2017, the Department withheld the release of money to GCGP LEP and then, in December 2017, GCGP LEP went into voluntary liquidation, following the Chair’s resignation the previous month.
16 March 2018