It is good to see the announcement from Mark Prisk today that BIS have allocated £5m as a LEP start-up fund. This is something I and many colleagues in LEP-land have been arguing for over many months (see select committee report). As the Select Committee concluded, LEPs are too important, and their potential positive impact on economic growth is too great, to allow them to fail for the want of a relatively small amount of start-up funding. This fund - albeit small and only for one year - should help us and colleagues to gear up and get some dedicated resource in place to support our high-quality Board.
