The recent announcement by the Labour Party that they will keep the current Local Enterprise Partnership arrangements beyond the next General Election in 12 months’ time (albeit trying to reduce overlaps in LEP geography) is a welcome sign that there might at last be some stability in governance outside Central Government.

Although all parties are still pledging devolution a little way short of the figures proposed in the Heseltine Report, it does genuinely seem that the principle of devolution, starting with the new Single Local Growth Fund in 2015/16, is here to stay. For those of us working outside the London and South East area, this is a long-held ambition, as there is a lot of sense in allowing local areas to make local decisions on funding around economic growth, skills, transport and housing.

This would appear to be a good things for the infrastructure industry too, for although there is likely to be a continued reduction in funding overall from the level in the early 2000s, schemes should be delivered more quickly without the need to trawl through a centralised appraisal process that often bogged down the best local infrastructure improvements.

"There is a fear that the immediate benefits of more localised decision making could actually be taken away from the area of benefit if LEPs rush to appoint larger companies"

But if we are really to reap the benefits of devolution, irrespective of the level of funding available, should LEPs not also be thinking how they set out their procurement mechanisms to try and benefit local firms and retain the benefits of infrastructure build within their local areas too?

As the owner of a small business based in the North of England, I clearly would say that, wouldn’t I? But the point is that, as business case, development, design and implementation work starts to flow from the LEPs (and the new Combined Authorities in some cases), wouldn’t it be better if the contracts being let either stipulated a proportion of sub-contract work to be undertaken by locally-based SMEs and/or a requirement for involvement with local training and education?

There is a fear that the immediate benefits of more localised decision making could actually be taken away from the area of benefit if LEPs rush to appoint larger companies, either based outside of the local area, or where resources are used remote from the area to complete the commission.

Before readers react in horror at this apparently xenophobic position, I would just add that this suggestion is not that at all – this is about the LEPs as they move forward taking a holistic view about using the welcome devolutionary process to achieve real and lasting benefits within the areas that they represent.

Jonathan Spruce is a director of Fore Consulting