Leap of faith aims to secure a brighter future for the region

So how exactly did the chairman of the North-East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) successfully pull off the unenviable assignment of securing agreement from Labour peer Lord Andrew Adonis to lead a review into the long-term prospects of North-East’s economy?

With two phone calls and a bit of self-belief, it would appear.

“We wanted someone with cross-party respect, who understood Government and who could see the big picture,”

said Mr Woolston.

“Lord Adonis was on the short list. From a personal point of view, I think it would have been easier signing a top centre-forward for a Premier League team.

“I had some dealings with Michael Hestletine. He liked the idea of taking a broader, wider, strategic view for a region. He said to Lord Adonis, ‘If Paul Woolston rings, please answer the phone’.

“And sure enough, when I telephoned him, he answered and listened to what I had to say.”

Undoubtedly, Lord Adonis getting behind the review has helped the North-East LEP, which looks after County Durham, Wearside, Tyneside and Northumberland, build a team that reads like the Who’s Who of North-East business, attracting well-known and respected experts Northumbrian Water chief executive Heidi Mottram, former Observer editor-inchief Will Hutton and the Right Reverend Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham.

The group will spend six months examining what can be done to boost the region’s economy, before presenting their findings to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

“We thought it would be good to get some people from the outside – experts if you like – to set up a vision to 2030,” said Mr Woolston.

“One of their tasks is to come up with a small number, say five, big things the North- East LEP and its partners need to do. At this stage, we do not want to get bogged down in the detail – we want something transformational.

“Our focus as an LEP is pretty simple: it is about creating jobs and increasing productivity.”

Despite being far-sighted enough to put in motion the seeds for a long-term strategy, Mr Woolston is also a pragmatist.

“I am very keen that we focus on the business of delivering in the meantime.

We can’t wait until next spring to continue our work.

“We are still focused on some big issues, particularly around the enterprise zones and the Regional Growth Fund.”

So what does this mean for the North-East LEP, which was criticised at the start of this year by influential Government aide Sir Ian Wrigglesworth, who feared internal wrangling had caused the North-East LEP to lag behind its southern counterpart Tees Valley Unlimited?

While Mr Woolston concedes that in the early days, there were problems with communicating the work the LEP had done, he said there were no fundamental problems in the organisation to prevent its smooth running, and maintained the LEP had got off to a good start.

“There were some things early on which weren’t so good, like communications.

We were concentrating on working hard to get the LEP up and running. We now have a small communications team in place.

“The board members put in a huge amount of effort and we got off to a good start.

“If you started any new organisation, most people would say it takes at least a year for the board to bed in.

“It is not surprising it took a little while because of the issues we focus on, we had to hit the ground running. We had to make big decisions. I think we have done that.”

Certainly, on paper, the North-East LEP’s achievements would seem to back this assertion.

As well as securing a highprofile peer and a raft of respected business minds to head up a potentially groundbreaking inquiry, since its formation, the North-East LEP has established ten areas in the River Tyne North Bank and A19 Corridor enterprise zones, netted in extra funding of more than £50m and seen 17 projects and programmes on its patch attract tens of millions of pounds of Government grants in the latest round of the Regional Growth Fund.

Looking at the finer detail, it is fair to say the North-East LEP’s enterprise zones, which offer tax breaks and lighter planning regulations as incentives for companies to invest, have so far experienced more than a measure of success.

Although there has only been a single investment among all ten sites – Japanese logistics company Vantec just off the A19 at Wearside – the firm invested a huge £22.5m, representing the biggest single investment in any enterprise zone in the country.

With it, the money has brought 283 jobs, and prompted a visit from Chancellor George Osbourne, who hailed it as one of the UK’s most successful – no mean feat in the scheme’s first six months.

The LEP has also pulled in two major rafts of Government funding to the region.

The first, £25m from the Growing Places fund, is being used to help kick-start the region’s struggling construction industry, and give businesses incentives to re-start shelved expansion plans, by lending firms money to resurrect mothballed building schemes.

So far, it has been an unmitigated success, says Mr Woolston, and led to the North-East LEP’s second major successful bid for money – £30m from round three of the Regional Growth Fund to invest in infrastructure.

“When we opened the Growing Places fund, it was over-subscribed,” he said. “We were very keen to look at demand-driven projects. We knew there was demand for this.”

The North-East LEP’s target for the infrastructure fund is to create at least 2,333 jobs in ten years and draw in millions of pounds of private investment to the area.

And although this sounds extremely positive, Mr Woolston says the North-East still has some big issues that need addressing if it is to become an economic powerhouse.

“We lack a bit of selfconfidence,”

said Mr Woolston, who was born and raised in the region and is now a senior partner at PriceWaterhouseCooper in Newcastle.

“We need to feel better about ourselves. We need to raise the aspirations of our young people. We need to make sure that, if they wish, young people can stay here in the North-East and be successful.”

He said the North-East could have great success if identified and used its positive aspects to its advantage.

“There is really a great story to tell. If we play to our strengths, I can see a much brighter future for the region.

I don’t think we realise the strengths we have.”

Key assets of the North-East economy, says Mr Woolston, include the energy sector – oil, gas and emerging industries such as offshore wind and solar panels – as well as strong digital, engineering and manufacturing sectors.

But most important of all, he says, is the North-East skills and work ethic.

“I am no engineer, but it seems to me there is almost this view that North-East people have innate engineering skills,” he said.

“The LEP could not attract a business to the region by itself. The one thing which comes up time and again as a huge attraction for companies is the quality of the workforce – we have got a very strong, skilled workforce with a great attitude.”

Despite this, he concedes the Government’s drive to encourage private-sector employers to create jobs and make up the shortfall in jobs caused by public sector cuts, which have hit the North-East particularly hard, is a difficult prospect.

“It is a really big challenge,”

he said. “We have got a very strong public sector and we do get a lot of value out of that.

“In this particular region, the private sector will have to work a little harder to generate jobs.” However, he firmly believes the region has a great future ahead of it, if it gains a little self-belief.

“I am very optimistic about the future of the North-East.

“There is this saying that you have a successful region if you have two top football clubs and two top universities.

“We have three top football clubs and five top universities.

How many regions can say that? We just need a bit more confidence.”

Perhaps then, the region can learn something from Paul Woolston’s leap of faith to attract Lord Adonis in a bid to secure a bright and prosperous future for the North-East.