Local Enterprise Partnerships

THIS PAGE IS NO LONGER UPDATED AND IS FOR REFERENCE ONLY

• Introduction
• East Midlands LEPs
• Geographical areas
• LEP strategies
• Priority areas
• LEP funding allocations
• VCS/LEP engagement
• Contact information
• Links and resources

This page is a resource within One East Midlands Reach & Impact project. For further resources related to ERDF funding and One East Midlands Reach & Impact project visit www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk/reachandimpactresources.

For further information about the Reach & Impact project visit www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk/reachandimpact.

Introduction

Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) have a rapidly expanding role in driving the local economic growth agenda. From 2014 this role will include developing investment strategies for European Structural Funds investment in business growth, skills, inclusion and rural development.

LEPs were originally created as private sector-led public : private sector partnerships. As a result previous VCS engagement with LEPs has been minimal. However, their role is now rapidly expanding into areas such as:

• Skills for employment;
• Community-led local development;
• Economic and social inclusion;
• Environment and climate change;
• Social innovation;
• ICT and digital inclusion; and
• Youth unemployment.

Many of these priorities impact on the work of VCS organisations or on the people and places that VCS organisations support. To read One EM's briefing on the changing role of LEPs from 2014 and how the VCS can engage with them click here.

East Midlands LEPs

The six LEP areas in the East Midlands, some of which overlap with each other or extend into other counties, are:

• Derby and Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (D2N2) – Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire counties including the cities of Derby and Nottingham;
• Greater Lincolnshire (GLLEP) – Lincolnshire county and North Lincolnshire district;
• Leicester and Leicestershire (LLEP) – Leicestershire county and Leicester city;
• South East Midlands (SEMLEP) – Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire and boroughs and districts of Northampton, Kettering, Corby, South Northamptonshire and Daventry;
• Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough – including Rutland;
• Sheffield City Region (SCR) – Sheffield economic area including the districts of Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire and Chesterfield, Bolsover, Derbyshire Dales and North East Derbyshire.

Specific pages on each of the individual LEPs can be accessed by clicking on their names above.

Geographical areas

In January 2014, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published maps showing the rural and urban areas covered by each LEP. The maps for the six LEP areas covering the East Midlands can be accessed below.

• D2N2
• GLLEP
• LLEP
• SEMLEP
• Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough
• SCR

LEP strategies

The LEPs covering the East Midlands and a majority across the UK have made their final EU Structural and Investment Fund strategies available, which provide detail on how each LEP want to spend their EU allocation of money and which priorities and opt-ins they are interested in exploring. 

The final strategies, which provide an opportunity to look at where there might be a role for the VCS in the new programme and how the LEPs intend to work with the sector to deliver the EU thematic priorities, including the social inclusion priority, are available for download below:

• D2N2
• GLLEP
• LLEP
• SEMLEP
• Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough
• SCR

Priority areas

Below are links to the priority areas for the LEPs. Below each priority area is a list of individuals within the voluntary and community sector who are interested in working in partnership to deliver collaborative projects within the priority area.

These pages were developed following One East Midlands Reach & Impact project, in partnership with ACEVO, running a series of workshops across the counties of the East Midlands in late 2013 and early 2014 to help third sector organisations, funding advisers and development workers start to prepare and think about how taking advantage of opportunities in the next EU Structural and Investment Funds 2014-20 programme.

If you would like to get in contact with one of these individuals to discuss working in collaboration with them or if you would like to be added to one of the lists email information@one-em.org.uk.

• D2N2
• GLLEP
• Greater Cambridge/Greater Peterborough
• LLEP
• SEMLEP
• SCR

LEP funding allocations

The following LEP funding allocations were confirmed by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on 17 April 2014.

VCS/LEP engagement

The contacts leading on VCS/LEP engagement in each LEP area are:

• D2N2 - Jane Howson, Autism East Midlands jane.howson@autismeastmidlands.org.uk
• GLLEP - Ben Barley, Involving Lincs - ben@voluntarycentreservices.org.uk
• LLEP - Heather Roytherne-Finch, Voluntary Action Leicestershire - heather.rf@valonline.org.uk
• SEMLEP - Jane Roemer, LEP board member - jane.roemer@semlep.com

Contact information

Links and resources

One East Midlands work on LEPs mainly falls under our ERDF Reach & Impact project and our NCVO European Funding Network commissioned LEP engagement project. Links to these and other useful information and resources are available below.

• One East Midlands ERDF Reach & Impact project
• One East Midlands’ LEP engagement project
• LEPs and their role in the 2014-20 EU Funding Programme - One East Midlands Policy Briefing (Revised July 2013)
• One East Midlands Insight magazine (Autumn 2013, Issue 9) including a two page article on LEPs (pages 10 to 11)
• Post Event Information on VCS engagement with the LEPs (July 2013)

The NCVO European Network have produced a series of documents to support VCS engagement and relationships with LEPs, which are available below.

• List of LEPs and their involvement with VCS
• How LEPs are engaging with the sector on the EU funds
• LEPs business case
• Support tool: Big Lottery Fund match funding
• Support tool: Community-led local development
• Support tool: Equality and anti-discrimination
• Support tool: Community grants

For further information on the NCVO European Network visit http://europeanfundingnetwork.eu.

Other resources relating to LEPs that might be of interest include:

• Working with Local Enterprise Partnerships: A guide for voluntary organisations (Compact Voice)
• Local Enterprise Partnerships: An LGIU essential guide