Turning over the stones: Should cities pursue City Deals, LEP growth strategies or Whole Place Community Budgets in pursuit of growth?

As the UK Coalition Government passes its mid-point, the major sub-national instruments for managing England’s city growth and development now seem set for the remainder of this parliament. This paper considers three principal instruments: City Deals, Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) growth strategies, and Whole Place Community Budgets. Although all three are still ‘work-in-progress’, each might provide opportunities for enhanced devolution of powers and resources for enabling growth. They may be used both singly and in tandem. Each, however, requires significant local capacity and capabilities to formulate propositions and negotiate these with government, let alone to deliver them effectively. And there remain questions about the commitment of government and its agencies genuinely to devolve powerful levers of growth to sub-national leadership teams. In reality, therefore, there will be limited and highly varied progress by the time of the next national elections in spring 2015. Cities need to shape these instruments so that they build longer-term foundations for city leadership of growth, and so that they can be adapted flexibly to changing circumstances in 2015 and beyond.