COUNCIL
24 OCTOBER 2016
Subject:Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP)
Lead Officer:Dave Webb
Contact on 01789 260100
Lead Member/
Portfolio Holder:Councillor C Saint
Summary
On the 25 July 2016 Council considered a Notice of Motion in relation to Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (CWLEP),as follows:-
“Last September (2015) this Council submitted an expression of interest to the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) for a railway reinstatement project. This bid has apparently been rejected.
However, an enquiry in March 2016 to the LEP as to which bids had been successful met with the response, ‘Expressions of Interest (EoI) were invited by the LEP on a commercially confidential basis and as such the list of EoI’s received remains confidential at this time’. In March this year the National Audit Office issued a report on LEPs which included an examination of their progress in implementing their local assurance framework and an assessment of their transparency to the public.
Amongst other comments from the report was the statement:
‘We were unable to find information on senior staff salaries for 87% of LEPs. Where financial information was available, we found that the format and level of detail varied considerably across LEPs, making it difficult to draw meaningful comparisons.’
Latest accounts filed at Companies House for the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP for the year to 31/3/2015 are in an abbreviated format, giving very little information. In view of the very large sums of public money involved, council requests, through Cllr Saint, its representative on the LEP Board, that the LEP consider whether a more transparent approach to its workings is justified.”
In considering the options, The Cabinet endorsed the Notice of Motion and requested that a copy be forwarded to the LEP Board with the request for their comment back on how their working could be made more transparent and that their key issues be put in the public domain with a report being submitted to the October 2017 Council meeting.
Minute 108: That the Notice of Motion, as amended, be endorsed and forwarded to Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) subject to the pointsraised in the preamble above.
Progress Update
Since the meeting of Council on the 25 July 2016 CWLEP were invited to respond to the comments set out in the Motion.
CWLEP are continually looking at the question of transparency and balancing it with commercial/confidential issues.
The Growth Deal 3 was published on CWLEP website shortly after the bids were compiled, following the closure for expressions of interest in March 2016. There is specific reference to Stratford-on-Avon District in the section on Culture and Tourism. The full document can be accessed via the following link
The Growth Deal submission also includes a list of all programmes/projects in the pipeline that are being supported. With regards the Honeybourne to Stratford Rail Line Feasibility Study, this is not included. The reasons why have previously been advised. The decisions on which projects/programmes would not be included in the submission were made at the CWLEP Board on 25 January 2016.
In terms of transparency, CWLEP has recently upgraded their website and published a register of interests for the entire board. The Board Minutes are consistently published together with agendas which are on the website 6 days before Board Meetings with a request for written questions from members of the public to raise with the Board ahead of meetings at the bottom of the agenda page.
Dave Webb
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (Head of Paid Service)
Background paper: CWLEP Growth Deal 3 submission