Minutes of a Meeting of the Local Enterprise Partnership held on Friday, 14 March 2014 at Council Chamber, Cockermouth Town Hall, Cockermouth, Cumbria CA13 9NP at 9.30 am

Board Members Present:

George Beveridge (Chair), Jackie Arnold (Vice-Chair), Stephen Broughton, Colin Glover, William Jefferson, Graham Lamont, Marna McMillan, Katie Milbourn, Moira Tattersall, Peter Thornton and Stewart Young

Executive Members Present:

Gillian Bishop (Interim LEP Business Manager), Jackie Currie, Gillian Elliott (Assistant Director - Economic Development, CCC) and Rob Johnston (Chief Executive - Cumbria Chamber of Commerce)

Also in Attendance:

Item 5 Paul Hammond – Mott Macdonald Professor Glyn Owen – Mott Macdonald Phil Wooley – Grant Thornton Item 6 Suzanne Caldwell – Cumbria Chamber of Commerce Sara Turnbull – Cumbria County Council Item 7 Ginny Murphy – Cumbria County Council

Minutes Jackie Currie – Cumbria County Council

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

An apology for absence was received from Mrs B Cannon.

2 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

The minutes of the previous meeting held on Friday 21 February 2014 were agreed with the following amendment:- Minute No 9 – Governance Report on Page 14 last paragraph on bottom page instead of ‘Delete Chamber of Commerce and CBI from a) and b) on the list of business sectors and…’ amend to read ‘Delete Chamber of Commerce and CBI from a) and b) and replace with a) large business and b) SMEs ..’

The Chair requested that the following be put on record:-

· That it is not the place of the LEP Board to replace the Private Sector Advisory Panel, and · That the value of the contribution of the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, alongside other partners was noted.

3 UPDATE FROM THE CHAIR & VICE CHAIR

Senior Whitehall Official

The Chair reported that further to discussions in Whitehall he can confirm that Martin Williams, a Senior official at BIS would be the new senior Whitehall contact for Cumbria LEP. He, along with the Vice Chair and Interim LEP Manager would be meeting up with Martin in the next couple of weeks.

Engagement with Cumbria MPs

In relation to engagement with the Cumbrian MPs around the SEP the Chair reported that he and Colin Glover had met with John Stephenson MP and given him a copy of the draft SEP. He advised that he would contact Mr Stephenson next week to discuss any specific comments he would like to make. He had also visited Jamie Reed MP, who, although he had many questions, seemed very supportive of the SEP. He had spoken to Tony Cunningham MP, who was generally supportive, and they would be meeting up in April in London to talk further about the SEP.

Jackie Arnold had contacted John Woodcock MP, Peter Thornton had spoken to MP and the Chair had also met up with Rory Stewart MP in January about the SEP.

Subject to further discussions with John Stevenson all MPs were in support of the plan.

European Funding Investment

The Chair reported that he was aware of discussions and debate in Whitehall about the devolution of decision making for European Investment Funding. The outcomes of the debate were implying that the sub committees set up to deal with European funding applications, which were currently LEP sub groups would become national sub committees. This was being discussed by the LEP Chairs at the next LEP Network event and he would report further findings once this meeting had taken place.

2 Local Action Groups (LAGs)

The Chair had received correspondence from DEFRA in relation the LAG groups. These groups had been set up by DEFRA and were made up of representatives from businesses, public agencies and local community bodies. The group considered grant applications and acted as a steering group for the RDPE programme. The correspondence had been around the alignment of the work of the LAGs with the ESIF. Katie Milbourn would be attending an event organised by one of the LAGs on 19 March and she would raise this with them then (Action: KM). It may be possible to invite a representative/s from the LAG/s to a future meeting of the LEP.

4 MATTERS ARISING NOT COVERED ELSEWHERE ON THE AGENDA

Planning & Housing Task Group

Gillian Bishop had spoken to Phil Houghton Chair of the Planning and Housing Task Group following their presentation to the LEP Board in January. She would be meeting up with him in the next few weeks to discussion the future direction of the group.

5 STRATEGIC ECONOMIC PLAN a) SEP Implementation/Delivery Plan

Paul Hammond, Professor Glyn Owen and Phil Wooley were in attendance for this item.

Board members received a report which provided an update on the work on Cumbria’s Strategic Economic Plan and associated funding through the Government’s Growth Deal. The report covered details of the programme of activity and ‘the ask’ from Government, and updated the SEP document to reflect the programme of activity.

In relation to the SEP Delivery Plan the plan sets out Cumbria’s application for Growth Deal funds of £23m in 2015/16 to deliver an increase in employment of 11,635 by the end of the Strategic Economic Plan’s period, with Gross Value Added (GVA) £437m higher, and 2,392 more dwellings with the Plan than would otherwise have been the case. These numbers were provisional and would change as projects were finalised.

The SEP document and delivery plan took into consideration the feedback from Whitehall on the draft Plan submitted in December 2013. This feedback praised the overall approach but suggested more detail on actions and deliverable was required.

At the LEP Board’s last meeting it was reported that during February 2014 partners had submitted 75 proposals for Growth Fund financial support using a pro forma (an outline business case) suggested by Mott MacDonald/Grant Thornton that corresponded to accepted appraisal criteria for UK Government investments – Green Book Appraisal.

3 Since then the consultants had been refining 15 projects that were agreed by the LEP Board as worthy of further development. The details and summary descriptions of the projects were set out in the Delivery Plan which also communicated in summary the individual project proposals.

Paul Hammond reminded the Board of their commitment in previous meetings to the development of a pipeline of projects that could access Growth Deal and future funding opportunities especially via the ESIF, to Cumbria’s future economic well-being and growth. It was therefore proposed to continue working with projects designated as “amber” to ensure that the county economy had a portfolio of development opportunities that could be brought forward as the market and funders demanded. The delivery plan described this approach in the context of a Cumbria Strategic Investment Fund for the period post 2015/16.

In relation to the priority on nuclear and energy Marna McMillan said that although she represented ‘energy’ on the LEP she had not been consulted on this section. She had concerns that this nuclear and energy section had very little detail on other forms of energy. In response Paul Hammond said that the plan included proposals for alternative energy in the Port of Workington project. The issue for Mott Macdonald was that they could only work up projects that had come forward and only a few of them were about other forms of energy. It was not possible for them to include other forms of energy if projects were not forthcoming. However, they noted the comments and would aim to include a reference to alternative forms of energy in the final plan.

Stewart Young requested a breakdown on the £12bn investment stated be provided. Paul Hammond agreed to forward this information.

The Board discussed the skills development (p44 of delivery plan) and the fact that there was no mention of engineering skills? They felt that this should be tied in to nuclear and advance manufacturing. These comments were noted and supplementary information would be included in the Annex on skills

In relation to the detail on Page 46 Peter Thornton commented that the relationship between the numbers of dwellings against the number of jobs seemed mismatched. Professor Owen explained that the proposal was for the number of dwellings would be substantially increased in the final version of the delivery plan, and explained the rationale for this.

The Board then discussed the areas within the county which had huge potential for housing developments such as Derwent Forest and MOD Longtown. They felt that the document should reference how partners were coming together to develop capacity to deliver housing needs and it was AGREED that board members should send comments on this to Gillian Bishop and she would work with Gillian Elliot to ensure this was reflected in the final document (Action: All/GB/PE/PH)

4 Stephen Broughton felt that was a lack of information on Page 36 about the vibrant rural and visitor economy. Professor Owen said the projects for this were still being worked up and there would be substantially more information included in the final version of the plan. b) Updated SEP Document

The LEP Board had received an updated version of the SEP document. Gillian Bishop advised that the December 2013 version of the SEP, which was endorsed by the Board, and submitted on the 19 December 2013, in line with Government deadlines, had been updated to reflect the emerging Delivery Plan focus, and to address the comments provided by the feedback from Greg Clarke.

The key updates in the document are as follows:

• Clearer articulation of the ‘ask’ • Updated Economic Picture • Strengthened ‘Making it Happen’ Section linking into the Delivery Plan details; areas such as Nuclear and Energy Excellence have been updated further to ongoing discussions with partners and project emerging information • Updated Investment Programme information, to support the details in the Delivery Plan • Revised Freedoms and Flexibilities section to reflect current position

The document would continue to be refined to take on board the comments of LEP Board members today, and to reflect the development of the Annexes and the Delivery Plan, to ensure that a robust and compelling case was submitted to Government by the 31 March 2014. Gillian Bishop asked the Board to note that the table on Page 70 – Strategic Economic Investment Programme was not yet finalised and detail would follow in the delivery plan on this.

The Chair asked that the information/statement on freedom and flexibility be added back into the document as this was a government term which we had altered to LEP Stakeholders. This was AGREED.

Gillian Bishop asked the Board to note that the final document would include a reference to HS2 and colleagues at the County Council were helping with the detail on this.

In relation to the section on ‘Our Governance’ Stewart Young asked if the intention of the Board was to ask the County Council to become the Accountable Body for this, and if so this should be reflected in the SEP. The Board then discussed this and on conclusion of the discussion it was AGREED that the County Council be asked to become the Accountable Body for the Growth Deal funds (Action: SY)

RESOLVED, that

5 (1) The Chair, Vice Chair (Private Sector) and Interim Vice Chair (Public Sector) be given delegated powers to approve the final submission of the SEP to ensure submission by the 31 March deadline;

(2) The County Council be asked to become the Accountable Body for the Growth Deal Funds. c) SEP Annexes

Gillian Bishop explained that the purpose of the 4 annexes to the SEP was to give greater detail on the economic drivers. They were all in different stages of development and the Board noted this. a) Business Support

This was an initial draft of the document and although this would be substantially updated and strengthened, feedback would be welcomed. The annex focus was on the impact that business support and supply chain development would have on the Cumbrian Economy. b) Skills

The Employment and Skills Commission was in place. A brief for a Skills Plan had been developed and shared with the Chair of the Commission. Moira Tattersall said she had spoken to colleagues in county and those in the County Council’s Children’s Services directorate and they were supportive of the brief. It was noted that this work needed to be completed by 31 March to support the SEP submission. The Chair asked the Board to consider commissioning Mott Macdonald to undertake initial work on the development of skills plan/annex before 31 March 2014, and then to work with colleagues after this date to provide further detail and development of the Plan. This was AGREED. c) Infrastructure

It was noted that this annex was more developed than the others. The design work had been undertaken on this annex document, it was noted that all of the annexes would be in the same format ahead of submission. This annex had been shared with colleagues at DfT and they had provided feedback on this. Moira Tattersall said that on Page 112 the reference to education providers should be amended to read further and higher education – this was AGREED.

Gillian asked all board members to send comments to her (Action: All) d) Environment

The Chair thanked colleagues at the LDNPA for their help in producing this annex. It was still work in progress but had now been shared with Marna McMiIlan and Katie MIlbourn, who would consider the detail and comment before it was circulated to the Board. This annex would cover farming and the environment, as well as sustainability and low carbon.

6 6 LEP COMMUNICATIONS a) LEP Communications Strategy

Suzanne Caldwell and Sara Turnbull presented a report which updated the Board on the LEP Communications Strategy. A Communications Strategy was agreed in 2011, and it had been agreed at the previous meeting that there was now a need to refresh it, and work had been undertaken on this.

The Board was asked to review the draft Communications Strategy, noting that there was also a need for Partners to review and agree this given their involvement in delivering it. The Board were asked to consider a series of questions to support the development of the strategy.

The Board was asked to note that a proactive approach to communications and marketing would be adopted. Individual action plans would be produced for specific issues, such as the SEP, RGF and publication of research reports such as the reports resulting from the Cumbria Business Survey. These would be produced and updated on an as needed basis. The first of these related to the SEP.

It was AGREED that LEP Communications would become a ‘standing item’ on the agenda at all future LEP meetings (Action: JC).

Peter Thornton said in relation to page 103 of the report under LEP spokespeople, he would be happy not to speak on behalf of the LEP, however he would not be able to agree to not speaking about the LEP. The Chair agreed he would be comfortable with all partners adopting this approach.

Discussions were held about the production and status of the minutes for the LEP meetings and the publishing of these. Gillian Bishop confirmed that all previous minutes, apart from ones from the last meeting, had now been published on the website. (Action: GB to arrange publication of minutes from 21 Feb meeting)

There was a discussion about whether or not a bi monthly newsletter should be produced but no firm decision was made on this at this stage. The Board asked the Interim LEP Manager to work with Sara Turnbull and Suzanne Caldwell to produce an action plan for further consideration by the Board (Action: GBi/ST/SC).

Moira Tattersall felt that the strategy should refer to Education and Skills providers as opposed to just education providers. This was AGREED. She also felt that there were many providers already in existence which may be able to be utilised for LEP communications. (Action: ST/MT to discuss).

7 b) SEP Communication Plan

Suzanne Caldwell presented this item to the Board. The Board was asked to review the strategy, with particular reference to a series of key questions, actions and stakeholders.

The Board discussed management of the information between 17 March (when it was proposed to share with interested stakeholders) and the submission date. The Chair felt there was a need to share the document with key partners/businesses, MPs, etc to get buy in from them but there would need to be a clear explanation of why this should be embargoed until 31 March.

The Board also discussed how to cascade the information to the media and the need to localise this. It was AGREED that core messages would be cascaded but then information could then be tailored to specific partner needs.

7 CUMBRIA BUSINESS SURVEY

The Board considered a report and received a presentation from the County Council’s Economic Intelligence Officer - Ginny Murphy, on the findings of the Cumbria Business Survey 2013.

The latest in a series of business surveys (dating back to the early 1990s) took place in September/October 2013 exploring topics such as trading & investment, growth, finance and skills. BMG Research was awarded the contract to conduct 2,000 telephone interviews and 20 face-to-face interviews.

The overall picture was an improving one with broadly stable trends on employment, improving trends on sales/turnover and high levels of confidence about future trends. Macro-economic factors were seen as the main constraint on growth together with more local factors such as planning, roads and people.

It was AGREED that,

(1) the 2 reports from the Cumbria Business Survey 2013 be noted;

(2) the publication of these reports be authorised on the LEP and Cumbria Intelligence Observatory websites (with a press release to accompany them);

(3) that BMG Research be invited to present the findings to key stakeholders at an event in the summer (the cost for BMG to do this was included in the contract price).

The Chair thanked Ginny for her report and presentation.

8 8 ESIF UPDATE

The Board received an update from the LEP Manager on the progress with the European Structural & Investment Fund. The intention was to keep updating the ESIF to ensure it remained aligned with the SEP.

A copy of the Greater Manchester ESIF had been obtained as this was being held up as a beacon of good practice., and it may be possible to include similar detail in the Cumbrian ESIF.

The LEP Manager notified the Board that in relation to Community Led Local Development, she had received a request for help and support from a group in the Whitehaven area to help them work up their bid.

The Board discussed whether all requests for assistance through these schemes should be actioned. It was felt that only the 4 projects (2 urban and 2 rural) currently identified should be offered support to work up bids at this stage. This was AGREED.

9 RECRUITMENT TO LEP

Gillian Bishop left the meeting at this point.

The Board considered a report which updated them on discussions held at the last meeting in relation to the recruitment to the LEP, and creating a structure of a part time Senior LEP post and a full time supporting officer role, which was being called the LEP Operations Manager. The report also contained a Candidate Briefing and a job description/person specification.

The Board discussed the suggested process to appoint the LEP Operations Manager. One of the board members questioned whether a 12 month contract was long enough to attract the desired calibre of candidates. The Chair understood the concerns about the length of the contract but it was difficult to offer any longer term contracts when the future funding for LEPs, past the current commitment from Government, was unknown.

The Chair asked the Board to note that Stewart Young had been invited to take on the role of Public Sector Vice Chair but only for this process and the agreement of the SEP. This was due to the timescales for completion of these projects. The appointment of the public sector Vice Chair would be taken at the next meeting of the Board in April. It was AGREED that Stewart Young take on this role for these projects.

Moira Tattersall asked whether there was a need for candidates to complete a CV and covering letter as well as an on line application. She felt this to be far greater that normally required for a post at this level. The Board AGREED that only an on line application would be required from candidates.

The proposed new structure was AGREED.

9 Gillian Bishop returned to the meeting.

10 FORWARD PLANNER

The Forward Planner for the future LEP Board meetings was noted. It was AGREED that the following items would be added to the planner for the 25 April 2014 meeting:-

1. Appointment of Vice Chair (Public Sector) 2. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) 3.. LEP Communications (Standing Item)

11 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Local Nature Partnerships

Katie Milbourn had attended a Rural Farming Network (RFN) meeting recently and she asked about the status of these linked to Local Nature Partnerships (LNPs). The Chair confirmed that these groups were not part of the LEP Governance structure, but had been established by DEFRA. However, he said there would be engagement with them in relation to the Environment Annex of the SEP document.

12 DATE & TIME OF NEXT MEETING

The next meeting will be held on Friday 25 April 2014 in Committee Room 4 at Barrow Town Hall at 9.30am.

POST MEETING NOTE: This meeting has been switched to the Site Briefing Room at GlaxoSmithKline, North Lonsdale Road, Ulverston.

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