The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
I, together with the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, Minister with responsibility for decentralisation, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, (Greg Clark), would like to inform the House that today we have written to the proposed Dorset local enterprise partnership inviting it to put in place governance arrangements.
Local enterprise partnerships see a real power shift away from central Government and quangos and towards local communities and the local businesses who really understand the barriers to growth in their areas. This announcement brings the total number of partnerships so far invited to put their governance arrangements in place to 36. Taken together these represent 2 million or 97% of all businesses (active enterprises) in England, 22 million employees (employee jobs figures) or 97% of all employees in England and; a population of 50 million or 97% of England’s population. We will continue to work with other areas with a view to establishing further local enterprise partnerships across England.