Last month, the IOEE invited its members to take part in a short survey about Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). There are 39 LEPs across the country. These are local authority / local business partnerships and their remit is to lead economic growth and job creation in their own regions.
Of the 39 LEPs, 25 currently have Growth Hubs but all LEPs will have a Growth Hub by March 2016. These have been put in place to help businesses make sense of the range of business and enterprise support services available at a local, regional and national level.
Following on from our recent work with LEPs across the country, we have been invited to run a workshop at a meeting of the 25 Growth Hubs in London later this month. Therefore prior to that workshop, we wanted to find out how well you know your LEP and Growth Hub, and what your thoughts are on how they can support further with enterprise learning and skills.
Two thirds of those who took part in the survey were from business support organisations, both public and private sector. The remaining third were sole traders and small businesses.
So, what were the results of our survey? Overall, it seemed that awareness of LEPs was high, however whilst 81.3% of people knew which was their LEP, only 60% were aware of Growth Hubs.
The most prominent services from LEPs were; small business support (53.3%), infrastructure and large capital projects (40%) and learning and skills development work (40%). Visibility of LEPs’ work in terms of large business support (20%), inward investment (20%), Apprenticeships support (26.7%), sector development (6.7%) and innovation support (20%) was lower.
Asked whether they thought it would be useful for LEPs to encourage enterprise learning and skills development in business, 73.3% of those surveyed answered yes. Some 60% said they believed LEPs should encourage enterprise learning and skills development in business, schools, colleges and communities.
We asked the participants which three types of learning and skills development had been, or would be, most useful to them. The topics of finance and marketing (including social media and communications) were cited most often. However, the range of answers was broad with business and enterprise coaching, HR, and diversification also mentioned.
The answers given to this question confirmed that most business people value the essential enterprise skills of finance, social media, HR, marketing and sales most highly. This reinforces existing evidence that there are a range of enterprise skills which can be developed, over and above those associated with growth and it is the fundamental enterprise skills that are most in demand.
We asked the respondents for their broader observations about LEPs and received an extremely constructive selection of comments, both positive and negative. Some felt that support tended to reach the ‘usual suspects’ and there was a need to widen the net to support more businesses that had been previously hard to reach. One person highlighted that an “Emphasis on skills is more important than building new ‘iconic’ office blocks, factory sites”. Another felt that although his / her business fell under the Leeds City LEP’s remit, when “we are more economically, socially, and culturally aligned with Manchester.” A concern that has been echoed in some other regions too.
There was some positivity from participants too, with one person commenting that their LEP was “friendly, proactive, dynamic and innovative.”
Many thanks to those that took part in the survey, the views of IOEE members have been very useful in identifying a set of initial experiences around LEPs and Growth Hubs. A number of the challenges highlighted by the survey were discussed by the SFEDI/IOEE Advisory Council at a recent meeting in London, with a particular focus how to engage more small businesses in the support available from the Growth Hubs. We will use these insights to shape our workshop with Growth Hubs later in June.
We’re always happy to hear the thoughts, concerns, opinions and questions of IOEE members, so if you didn’t have chance to take part, but have thoughts to share in relation to LEPs, Growth Hubs and enterprise skills, please email [email protected].