Some £12bn of central government funding should be made available to local enterprise partnerships each year, says local government think tank Localis.
This comes in Localis report, The Next LEPs, which sets out how the partnerships could be improved to take full advantage of their potential to drive local economic development.
The organisation calculates that if the government followed its proposals it would result in a 9% increase in returns by 2020, rising from £1.6trn to £1.7trn.
Other proposals include allowing LEPs to retain stamp duty receipts from new-build house sales under £500,000 and the government allocating £600m of annual business rates growth to the LEPs by 2020.
The report also states that too much of the £18.5bn already provided by the government is ring-fenced and that this should be rectified in conjunction with an increase in the transparency and accountability of the partnerships.
This would partly be achieved by appointing a representative from a local business body to each LEP board as well as by making LEPs subject to Freedom of Information requests.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Oliver Letwin MP said: “With LEPs the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts and they can achieve things councils couldn’t.”
However, he warned: “They mustn’t become a large bureaucratic edifice.”
