The budget has confirmed the coalition government’s intention to replace RDAs with Local Enterprise Partnerships, a community focused, ‘more direct’ body, and that this process will now begin with a White Paper published later in the summer.
In the transition to new arrangements, RDAs’ responsibility is clear: to support and help government deliver their objectives. The RDA accepts change is coming and we are ready for it. We also recognise that funding available for economic development work will be more limited in the next few years given the need to tackle the public deficit.
The White Paper will no doubt look at many issues, such as the mechanism for creating LEPs, how their boundaries will be decided and the respective roles for local authorities and business. There is also the question of which economic development functions will taken on by LEPs and which may best be carried out at a national level, as Ministers have suggested.
Whatever the detail, the national challenge remains how to create stronger, more sustainable and balanced economies in each part of the country and to ensure that growth – new jobs, new businesses, new industries –plays a critical part in reducing the nation’s budget deficit.
At such a critical time for our national economy England must sharpen its international competitiveness, particularly in key sectors such as advanced manufacturing and low carbon technologies.
