TWENTY-TWO bald men fighting over a comb – that was how Allister Hayman, of the Local Government Chronicle, rather provocatively described the scramble to form Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) on October 6.

Is it a fair assessment? Some would argue yes. After all, the Government has set aside only one-third of the budget that was available to the LEP predecessors – the nine regional development agencies – and has made it clear that there is no funding to set up the bodies.

Instead, individual LEPs will have to compete with one another for money to fund wealth/job-creating projects. The Government has not laid down guidelines about what role they will play and it is not inconceivable that some LEPs may not “win” any funding at all if they fail to produce sufficiently robust proposals.

On the other hand, it has to be recognised that LEPs offer the opportunity for groups to propose really innovative solutions to increasing wealth creation and boosting jobs. The Government said it will trust local people to say what initiatives are needed.

The process to get to where we are today has taken a tremendous amount of effort and included some heated discussions, but I believe we at least have a footing for growth. NECC, as part of the Northern Business Forum, was keen to see one economic partnership covering the whole North-East to work alongside bodies at a local level.

Areas such as inward investment and support for innovation in key sectors are issues that stretch beyond local boundaries and must be addressed at a North- East level.

Largely speaking, we have achieved the objective of establishing the North East Economic Partnership and we have had a clear message from the Government that the partnership will work with the Tees Valley LEP and the planned LEP covering an area from Durham to Northumberland.

The partnership’s exact remit has yet to be agreed, but it is the right framework for ensuring the constituent parts of the North-East, particularly the Tees Valley, do not lose out to heavyweight LEPs in other parts of the UK.

We await the Government to metaphorically give us a full head of hair, it’s up to us to fight hardest for the comb.

■ James Ramsbotham is the chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce.