The End of LEPs
By XrysD - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133523323 English Local Authorities Jane Lambert Local enterprise partnerships ("LEPs") were collaborations between local authorities, businesses and universities to take over responsibility for local economic development from the regional development agencies. They were established by the Coalition government shortly after it came into office. I wrote about their formation in Local Enterprise Partnerships Begin to Take Shape in the NIPC Inventors Club blog on 21 Oct 2010. In his Spring budget statement, Mr Jeremy Hunt MP, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a consultation on transferring the functions of the LEPs to local authorities (see Government Plans to abolish LEPs by Kwame Boakye in the Local Government Chronicle of 15 March 2023). After an information-gathering exercise by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the...