The Leicester and Leicestershire Local Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) covers Leicestershire county including Leicester city.
The LEP is one of seven LEP areas in the East Midlands, some of which overlap with each other or extend into other counties. For further information on LEPs and all the LEP areas covering the region click here.
The following description of LLEP is taken from their website:
“The LLEP provides local government, the business community and other partners the opportunity to come together to lead economic development and regeneration activities and to drive forward economic growth.
The LLEP aims to make Leicester and Leicestershire a destination of choice by promoting the area as a place to do business, work and live. The LLEP will provide strategic leadership to deliver sustainable economic growth through investment in enterprise and innovation, employment and skills and infrastructure including transport and housing.”
In January 2014, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a map showing the rural and urban areas covered by LLEP, which can be viewed here.
Website: www.llep.org.uk
Named contact: Mandip Rai, Head of LLEP
Address: A10, New Walk Centre, Welford Place, Leicester LE1 6ZG
Telephone: 0116 454 2917
Email: admin@llep.org.uk / mandip.rai@llep.org.uk
Twitter: @LLEPnews
The contact for VCS/LEP engagement in LLEP is Heather Roytherne-Finch, Voluntary Action Leicestershire, who can be emailed at heather.rf@valonline.org.uk.
LLEP has made their final EU Structural and Investment Fund strategy available, which provides detail on how they want to spend their EU allocation of money and which priorities and opt-ins they are interested in exploring.
Their final strategy, which provide an opportunity to look at where there might be a role for the VCS in the new programme and how the LEP intends to work with the sector to deliver the EU thematic priorities, including the social inclusion priority, is available to download here.
Here is a link to the priority areas for the LLEP. Below each priority area is a list of individuals within the VCS who are interested in working in partnership to deliver collaborative projects within the priority area.
These pages were developed following One East Midlands Reach & Impact project, in partnership with ACEVO, running a series of workshops across the LLEP area in late 2013 and early 2014 to help third sector organisations, funding advisers and development workers start to prepare and think about how taking advantage of opportunities in the next EU Structural and Investment Funds 2014-20 programme.
If you would like to get in contact with one of these individuals to discuss working in collaboration with them or if you would like to be added to one of the lists email information@one-em.org.uk.
The LEP funding allocation for LLEP was confirmed by the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills on 17 April 2014 as €125.7million.
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In August 2014 LLEP provided the following information on their involvement with the VCS.
Has LLEP established VCS communication mechanism or is working with a VCS organisation that represents the wider sector?
LLEP has held extensive consultations with a wide range of partners including the VCS in the design of their ESIF 2014-20. This began with a consultation event held on 5 July which was attended by over 70 participants from the public, private and VCS sectors. Following this the LLEP Board (which has a representative from the VCS) established a Strategy Programme Board to oversee the development of their ESIF and SEP. This Board also had a representative from the VSC, Steve Kendall, Vice Chair, Voluntary Action Leicestershire (VAL). It met regularly to oversee the development of the ESIF Strategy and made recommendations about priorities and funding allocations to the LLEP Board. In support of the Strategy Programme Board, the LLEP set up three thematic groups to identify programme priorities, consider funding allocations and co-design programmes and projects. The three groups were Private Sector Growth, Infrastructure & Environment and Labour Market & Social Inclusion. All three groups were attended by representatives from the VSC. In total, 150 different people participated in these meetings. All of the three groups met three times and in some instances sub-groups were set up to look at outputs and opt-ins in more detail. We also sought input from trade unions and equality organisations. In addition, information about the ESIF Strategy and the process has been placed on our website and organisations have been encouraged to input and comment.
What recent engagement activities has your LEP undertaken with VCS?
Following the submission of our first draft the LLEP has continued to meet with key partners and opt-in organisations including the VCS. In addition a major event was hosted by the LLEP and Leicester Business Council at the King Power Stadium. This event was attended by over 200 delegates. The ESIF Coordinator has liaised with a number of VSC organisations and presented to the Leicester Business Support Network. We continue to hold regular meetings with the VSC and keep them updated regarding the current Government position as well as development of the ESIF.
What is the current timetable for finalising EU SIF investment strategies and launch of the EU SIF 14-20 programme? Will you be running any event, workshops to launch the programme?
The current timetable and finalisation of the ESIF is the same for all LEPs. The Government is planning for a November sign-off by the European Commission for a December start for all EU-SIFs. No one can launch their ESIFs until then because the Government has not signed-off any of the LEPs ESIFs, or confirmed outputs with them. Neither can the LEPs launch any activities / commission activities associated with the ESIF until the Government confirms all of these once the European Commission has signed-off the UK Operational Programme and UK Agreement. However, it is anticipated that the Government will not meet their own target and that sign-off will not be achieved until 2015.
Is there any other information/activity that you think might be relevant?
We have consulted on and shared our ESIF extensively with the VCS. We have also kept them informed of progress regarding discussions with the various Government Departments and Opt-in organisations. However, only when the Government releases eligibility criteria, output definitions, process for calls for activities etc. will we be holding any workshops. We are as frustrated as the VCS regarding the Governments lack of information. However, we feel that we have consulted extensively with the VCS on the ESIF. The next stage is to develop the capacity of the VCS to apply for ESIF funding. But without this information from the Government there is little that is new, that we can tell the VCS. We do however anticipate receiving this information over the next few weeks and will be holding a series of intensive workshops for the VSC from September to December 2014 – once we have all of the priority axis’s + eligibility criteria etc. These will then be “tailored” and will include presentations from the Opt-in organisations as well as Managing Authority and the LLEP to ensure that the VSC has the knowledge to submit successful applications.
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In addition to those linked to above, the following resources produced by or relating to LLEP may be of interest to you. This list will be added to but we would also recommend keeping an eye on the LLEP website for updated information.
