BLEDP Annual Report 2005-2006

BEDFORDSHIRE & LUTON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP LTD

ANNUAL REPORT 2005-06

9

BLEDP Annual Report 2005-2006

Introduction – Background to the Company

This is first annual report of the Bedfordshire and Luton Economic Development Partnership (BLEDP) as a limited company. It therefore concentrates on the activities of the company rather than the wider partnership.

BLEDP was set up as an informal partnership in 1996, with no formal constitution and no staff. Its work was limited to producing an annual Joint Economic Development Strategy. In 2001, the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) encouraged BLEDP to seek a wider membership and the Universities and other bodies joined.

In 2001-02, EEDA decided to give financial assistance to BLEDP. In the first year, the funding was only £100k, but with the promise of £500k in 02-03 and 03-04. The first tranche of funding was used to set up the Partnership Office at Wrest Park with a staff of three; two funded from the EEDA grant and one seconded from the County Council.

The EEDA funding enabled BLEDP to fund small economic development projects. From the breadth of the previous JEDS policies, we decided to concentrate on four areas; entrepreneurship, innovation, investment and infrastructure. In practice, the funding was mainly used for a few large projects in the first two categories. BLEDP has consistently exceeded the outputs agreed with EEDA in terms of new businesses and jobs.

It became clear during 2004-05 that an informal partnership was insufficiently robust to enable BLEDP to provide the vision and leadership that was required. Therefore, the partnership decided to incorporate as a Company Limited by Guarantee with clear private sector leadership, but with vital contributions from the public and academic sectors.

The company was first incorporated on 23 March 2005. The first meeting of an Interim Board was 23 May 2005. The first proper Board was constituted at the first AGM on 22 June 2005 and the first meeting of that board held the same day. Both Board meetings dealt mainly with procedural matters in setting up the company. Further individuals from the private sector were invited to join the Board and meetings of the full board have taken place on 19 September 2005, 8 November 2005, 10 January 2006 and 7 March 2006.

The names and attendance record of the members of the Board during the year ending 31 March 06 are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 - Board Meeting Attendance Record 05-06

Name / No of Meetings Attended / Out of / Comments
Derek Ludlow / Ludlow Group of Companies / 6 / 6
Lee Allen / AW Transport / 2 / 5
John Appleby / London Luton Airport / 4 / 5
Frank Branston / Bedford Borough Council / 0 / 5 / Appointed by local authority
Anthony Brown / Mid Beds District Council / 3 / 4 / Appointed by local authority
Steve Clarke / Bedfordshire Newspapers / 1 / 3 / Resigned Dec 05
Richard Combes / InterBusiness Group / 3 / 5
Les Ebdon / University of Luton / 2 / 6
Linda Hockey / (Learning and Skills Council) / 3 / 5 / In a personal capacity
Phil Inness / Axis Electronics Ltd / 4 / 4
Richard Lacy / InterBusiness Group / 6 / 6
Jahangir Khan / Bury Park Business Association / 0 / 5
Brian Marshall / R H Marshall / 3 / 3
Trevor Pile / Sweet Potato Experience / 2 / 3
Ian Pryce / Bedford College / 2 / 3
Graham Russell / Bedfordshire Newspapers / 1 / 1 / Elected Jan 06
Sid Rutstein / Luton Borough Council / 4 / 5 / Appointed by local authority
John Scott / Bedfordshire County Council / 3 / 4 / Appointed by local authority
Anne Spencer / South Beds District Council / 3 / 4 / Appointed by local authority

The setting up of the company took up a considerable amount of time of the staff of BLEDP. Despite this, the normal work of the BLEDP office continued. 2005-06 was a year of considerable achievement for BLEDP. This is described in the rest of this report and reflected in the accounts.

BLEDP is recognised by EEDA as one of 9 Sub-regional Economic Partnerships (SREPs) in the East of England. As such, BLEDP is the sister organisation of the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) in the sub-region. As a SREP, BLEDP had four distinct but linked roles in 2005-06.

1.  BLEDP aims to co-ordinate strategically the economic development and business support activities of its partners through the Joint Economic Development Strategy (JEDS).

2.  In 2005-06, we were accountable to EEDA for the expenditure of £992,850 core and £297,275 Rural Renaissance funding to 26 projects delivered by the wider partnership. These projects were agreed initially by an annual Business Plan submitted to EEDA in the previous financial year and supplemented by additional project agreements negotiated throughout the year.

3.  BLEDP is also the accountable body for the delivery of projects under the Investing in Communities fund (IiC).

4.  BLEDP represents the sub-region on various regional bodies both within the east of England and at initiatives which cross regional boundaries such as the Milton Keynes South Midlands Sustainable Communities Plan sub-region and the Oxford to Cambridge Arc.

In 2006-07, the second role has changed considerably. We are no longer directly accountable for any core or Rural Renaissance projects (the latter fund has ceased to exist). Instead, we now co-ordinate all EEDA investment into the sub-region through each of EEDA’s four business products. This is agreed through the annual Investment Plan, which was submitted to EEDA during 2005-06. EEDA continues to provide funding to support our office activities.

The overall purpose of BLEDP is summed up in a favourite phrase of the chairman of BLEDP, Derek Ludlow, which we aim to ensure that “The whole should be greater than the sum of the parts”.

Strategic Achievements

The Joint Economic Development Strategy

At its AGM last year, BLEDP adopted a new Joint Economic Development Strategy (JEDS). This was the culmination of several months’ work by staff from the BLEDP office and all the key BLEDP partners. The JEDS was then adopted or endorsed by all the key partners individually.

In particular, partners adopted the jobs target of 50,000 new jobs to be created in Bedfordshire and Luton by 2021. This target is now widely accepted and quoted, even in the letters columns of the local press. The JEDS suggested sub-targets for three main groups of employers that were likely to create these new jobs:-

·  New Businesses and Social Enterprises (self employment),

·  Existing Employers,

·  New Employers attracted from overseas and the UK (inward investment).

Partners also accepted that if we were collectively to achieve these targets, there had to be a step change in the way that economic development and business support was delivered across the sub region.

The Task and Finish Groups

In order to determine what these step changes might be, BLEDP set up three private sector led Task and Finish Groups to consider the following questions.

1 Why are these types of employer not creating now the level of jobs we will need in the future?

2 What programme of activities does BLEDP have to adopt to stimulate these types of employer to create the jobs we need?

These groups were set up before the adoption of the JEDS, but when the basic thrust of the JEDS was known. They reported back to two Partnership meetings on 25 May and 8 November 2005. The first Partnership meeting identified the following barriers in order of importance.

·  Better co-ordinated business support

·  Vision, Leadership, Authority

·  Image

·  Premises

·  Targeted support for sectors/clusters

·  Infrastructure

The Task and Finish Groups found the second round agenda of addressing future actions more difficult to consider. The second meeting was less productive than the first in terms of finding common ground on what a step change of delivery might look like.

Since the second meeting, various proposals have been made to change the local delivery of economic development and discussions have taken place within the wider Partnership, many of which are ongoing. Several are discussed in more detail later in this report.

Investment Plan

For several years, BLEDP has submitted an annual Business Plan to EEDA through which EEDA authorised BLEDP’s core and project expenditure for the following financial year. In 2006-07, BLEDP no longer has responsibility for project funding, either for core projects or for projects funded by the Rural Renaissance fund. Instead, EEDA has asked BLEDP to provide the strategic co-ordination for all its expenditure across all four of its business products. In other words, EEDA will only fund activities which have already been agreed by BLEDP and included in a new style annual submission. We have called this an Investment Plan to distinguish it from previous BLEDP-EEDA Business Plans, the company Business Plan and the IiC Business Plan.

BLEDP co-ordinated and submitted an Investment Plan for 2006-08 in March 2006. This was the culmination of several months’ negotiation with EEDA and facilitated discussions between BLEDP partners to determine priorities. The first draft was submitted to EEDA in December 2005. The final plan is described in more detail in the section on Future Activities.

IIC Business Plan

BLEDP was also responsible for co-ordinating and submitting a separate and more detailed Business Plan to EEDA dealing exclusively with the proposed use of Investing in Communities (IiC) funding in Beds and Luton. This is described in more detail in the section on IiC.

IiC is the one of the four EEDA business products described in the Investment Plan referred to above where BLEDP is more advanced in its strategic prioritisation than the others. It has also been given direct responsibility for its delivery. Therefore last year it was logical to submit a more detailed plan for IiC and a separate Investment Plan to cover all 4 products. BLEDP, together with the other SREPs, is continuing to negotiate with EEDA over the future types of Plan which need to be submitted to EEDA in order to provide EEDA with the strategic co-ordination service it requires.

BLEDP Business Plan

As stated in the introduction, BLEDP Ltd has a wider strategic role than being the strategic conduit to EEDA funding for its partners. BLEDP has sought to develop a company business plan which more fully reflects this wider role. A company business plan was submitted to the board on 19 September 2005. However, we have not yet managed to make a clear distinction between this plan and the Investment Plan described above. Indeed, the latter contains the proposed budget for company administration in some detail. We are still working on this and developing agreed targets against which the company’s effectiveness can be measured.

Core Activity

Introduction

2005-06 was BLEDP’s best year to date, if measured by volume of funding secured and the outputs achieved with it. This was due to BLEDP’s capacity and ability to seize opprtunities to secure funding additional to its core allocation from EEDA, and the cumulative experience of BLEDP’s partners to react to those opportunities immediately and with innovation. The result was an impressive rate of return for EEDA’s investment into Bedfordshire and Luton activity. The total core expenditure reflects partner contributions/leverage in cash or in-kind.

Total Core Expenditure: £1,804,956

EEDA Core Expenditure: £992,850

Table 3 – BLEDP Core Outputs 2005-06

Core Outputs: / BLEDP Core Actual for Year / EEDA Actual for Year / % of EEDA from B&L
Job Creation - number of jobs created or safeguarded / 543 / 4299 / 12.63%
Business Creation - number of new businesses created and demonstrating growth after 12 months and businesses attracted to the region / 120 / 2560 / 4.69%
Business Support - number of businesses assisted to improve their performance / 474 / 12203 / 3.88%
Skills - number of people assisted in their skills development as a result of RDA programmes. / 3021 / 32659 / 9.25%

The following summaries provide highlights of BLEDP investments in 2005/06. For more information on particular activities or projects contact the BLEDP team on 01525 862999 or email . Alternatively see Appendix B of this report for a list of websites for activities supported through BLEDP.

Innovation / Enterprise Hubs

Central Innovation Network (CIN) was supported by BLEDP in 2005/06 as its final year of project funding. CIN provides a unique forum for science and technology based businesses, allowing those in local innovation centres, higher education institutions and R & D based companies to meet to exchange ideas and support each other. A variety of high profile technology events were delivered or supported by CIN in 2005/06, including a Design Council project which assisted 12 individuals in technology based companies over an extended period. CIN continues to produce a newsletter and maintain a website which includes signposting to specialist business support services, funding opportunities including venture capital and business angels.

Following the launch of EEDA’s new business products, BLEDP began work with partners on developing activities suitable for support from Enterprise Hub funding.

BLEDP has supported partners in preparatory work on developing accommodation and facilities at Colworth Park in Sharnbrook, and proposals for an aerodynamics enterprise hub at Aircraft Research Association, Bedford. Impact assessment has begun on developing a centre of excellence in elephant conservation at Woburn and feasibility work around a sports enterprise hub/cluster in Bedford.