Partnership in Economic Development; The Case of U.K. Local Enterprise Agencies.

The growth of local enterprise agencies (LEAs) has been an important focus for private sector involvement in local economic development in Great Britain in the 1980s. The growing importance of the partnership approach to economic development raises issues concerned with its costs and benefits in comparison with an approach which is more clearly under public sector control. A key issue concerns the lack of democratic accountability of organizations which are expanding their range of activities at a time when the scope for local authority involvement in economic development is being restricted by central government.