The abolition of
regional development agencies and the creation of local enterprise partnerships were announced as part of the
June 2010 United Kingdom budget. On 29 June 2010, a letter was sent from the
Department for Communities and Local Government and the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to local authority and business leaders, inviting proposals to replace regional development agencies in their areas by 6 September 2010. On 7 September 2010, details were released of 56 proposals for local enterprise partnerships that had been received. On 6 October 2010, during the Conservative Party Conference, it was revealed that 22 had been given the provisional 'green light' to proceed and others might later be accepted with amendments. 24 bids were announced as successful on 28 October 2010. LEPs were set up on a voluntary basis without any public funding and struggled to make progress. A report by
Michael Heseltine in October 2012,
No Stone Unturned, was largely accepted by Government, and proposed delegating certain funds from central government to LEPs. Changes included: • allocating a share of a £1,400m Local Growth Fund to generate growth, through competitive bidding; • getting LEPs to draw up plans for local growth as the basis for negotiation on the money in the Fund • realigning the management of the EU Structural and Investment Funds in England to follow the plans made by LEPs.
City deals The LEP areas of Greater Birmingham and Solihull,
Greater Manchester,
Leeds City Region, North Eastern,
Sheffield City Region, and West of England were included in the first wave of 'city deals' in 2012.
Growth deals Local
growth deals, for projects that benefit the local area and economy, began to be made to some LEPs in 2014.
Abolition and successor bodies The
Rishi Sunak Conservative government withdrew funding for the partnerships in April 2024 and transferred their functions to the
Greater London Authority,
combined authorities and upper-tier local authorities (i.e.
county councils or
unitary authorities). In the months after funding was withdrawn from LEPs in April 2024, many local authorities and combined authorities formed Business Boards to assume the functions previously carried out by LEPs. ==List of LEPs==