Agenda item

Ms Sue Tilley, the Head of the LLEP, and Mr Andy Reed, the Chair of the LLEP Board, will be attending to present this item.  Mr. P. Bedford CC, the County Council’s representative on the LLEP Board, has also been invited to attend for this item.

The Committee considered a report of the Interim Head of the Leicester and Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) which provided a summary of the LLEP’s activity over the past 12 months.  The Interim Head, with the Co-Chair of the LLEP Board also provided a presentation as part of this item on the LLEP Annual Report (April 2021 to March 2022) and the LLEP Delivery Plan (April 2022 – March 2023).  A copy of the report and presentation slides are filed with these minutes.

The Chairman welcomed Sue Tilley, the Interim Head of the LLEP, and Andy Reed, Co-Chair of the LLEP Board, to the meeting.

Arising from discussion, the following points were raised:

(i)          Small businesses in more rural communities were struggling and the cutting of bus services posed a new and difficult challenge.  It also did not support the LLEP’s Strategic aim of ‘sustainability’.  It was noted that the LLEP had and would continue to work in partnership with local authorities and private bus companies to ensure areas remained connected and continued to attract inward investment.  However, funding public transport had always been a difficult balance.  Whilst necessary to support economic growth, a lack of demand simply made some services unviable.  As financial pressure on the County Council and bus companies grew this would become even more of a challenge. 

(ii)         The growth of logistics at East Midlands Airport meant significant focus had been given to connecting that site with areas of the County where employees lived, acknowledging that a 9 to 5 service would no longer be suitable.

(iii)       A key challenge would be adjusting the economic development offer to accommodate the change in peoples working patterns with many now working from home.  Some businesses were still adapting and so whilst alternative economic models would be needed, these would take time to develop.  It was noted that many businesses were still adjusting to a new normal and so it was not yet clear what support they would need in the future.  

(iv)      Two areas of work for the future would be addressing digital poverty and digital exclusion.  As many services were now delivered online and people worked in a more remote, hybrid way, digital skills and access became increasingly important. 

(v)        The LLEP sought to ensure a fair geographical spread in the work that it carried out and did a lot to support micro-businesses which were based in Leicester City and in towns and rural areas.  It made sense to target work where there were existing business clusters and to utilise the innovation of the three universities in the area, as this was where most growth would likely be generated.  However, this did not mean that work was not taking place elsewhere to support smaller business across the County.  It was recognised that such work might not be on such a large scale and might not therefore be as well publicised.

(vi)       The LLEP sought to improve its reach through several forms of media noting that not everyone had good digital skills.  However, it had to be recognised that the LLEP supported businesses and so much of its contact was business to business, meaning digital forms of communication such as email and social media were very effective.  However, it was acknowledged that alternative coverage was still needed and the LLEP still therefore made good use of newspapers and the telephone. 
 

(vii)      A Member questioned whether there was any evidence to suggest the UK was less productive than countries such as France and Germany because of its increased hybrid working approach following the pandemic.  It was proposed that some recent statistics suggested that all but 5% of employees in France and Germany had gone back to work whereas some 23% of employees in the UK were still working from home.  Both France and Germany had higher productivity levels than the UK. 

Mr Reed agreed to raise this with colleagues at a national level but commented that productivity in the UK had been lower than in France and Germany before the pandemic struck and this was largely due to a lack of long term investment in infrastructure and skills.  It was also noted that the UK economy was more service/finance based.  France and Germany had significantly more manufacturing businesses and so would be less able to adopt a hybrid working approach in those sectors.

RESOLVED:

That the update now provided on the work of the LLEP during the period April 2021 to March 2022 be noted.