BUSINESSES and local authorities often make for strange bedfellows.

I am not saying that they cannot work together – there are myriad examples when they do - but there is always the possibility that toys will be kicked out of prams as soon as one side of a public–private partnership is perceived to be calling the shots.

The ongoing wrangle over the appointment of a new chief executive for the North East Local Enterprise Partnership has exposed the differences that rise to the surface when you ask unelected business people and elected council chiefs to join forces and work together for the greater good.

The idea behind Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) - set up by the Government to replace the likes of development agencies such as One North East - was based on an assumption that the hugely important job of regional development could be done with minimal funding.

I have been very impressed by some of the talented and well intentioned people working as part of the LEPs that drive jobs and investment into North Yorkshire, Tees Valley, and across the north of our region. But I have always had grave concerns that by trying to deliver regional development on the cheap the Coalition was creating a system which was fundamentally flawed.

The business people who work on the LEP boards do so on a voluntary basis. Some of them give up hours – sometimes days – of their precious time every week to work on LEP projects. This does not seem right to me. By asking people to do this vital work in their spare time means you must attract that rare breed – someone who wants the best for the region but has no ulterior motive for giving up their time and talent for free.

The alternative scenario is that you attract people who join a LEP as a means of seizing political and economic power without any accountability to the local electorate.

Whatever the outcome of May’s General Election the LEP model needs a rethink. I am not an advocate for ripping it up and starting again. But if we are to be serious about rebalancing the type of regional inequalities which mean that towns in the North-East have double the number of empty shops as those in the South – then LEPs need to be better funded, fully accountable and transparent organisations.

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