B4 Platinum CEOs and Leaders Discussion Lunch with Nigel Tipple, CEO, Oxfordshire LEP (OxLEP)

June’s lunch was hosted by Nigel Tipple of OxLEP at B4’s HQ in Oxfordshire and focused on:

• An update for the senior leaders in the Oxfordshire business community of OxLEP’s current position, delivery and relationship with our upper tier authority.

• An opportunity to acquire immediate feedback and thoughts from senior leaders as to common challenges and opportunities facing Oxfordshire’s business community.

Nigel also brought those in attendance up to speed with the future role of OxLEP as well as past achievements:

• LEP integration – What has happened? What does this mean in reality? What next for LEPs?

• From 1 April this year – triggered by a change in Government policy announced during the spring budget in 2023 – the functions of LEPs were required to be delivered through a mechanism agreed by respective upper-tier local authorities.

• Through a relatively broad framework, each upper-tier authority had the freedom to adopt an operational delivery model with its respective LEP – with this in mind, LEPs have many quite different arrangements with their respective upper-tier authorities.

• The rationale behind this change is to align decisions relating more-closely to sustainable and inclusive economic growth with locally-elected democratic institutions, across functional economic areas – in this instance, Oxfordshire County Council.

• Following a county council cabinet meeting in February, OxLEP reached an agreement with Oxfordshire County Council which ensured they could continue to deliver current and future operational programmes and services across Oxfordshire, with the county council becoming OxLEP’s single member.

• Through reaching this agreement, OxLEP remained well-positioned to continue to deliver comprehensive business, skills, investment and trade support services to the county’s business community, as well as supporting a variety of plans that help to ensure Oxfordshire’s economic potential is delivered in a sustainable and inclusive way, benefitting both businesses and communities alike.

• OxLEP are well positioned moving forward thanks to our business support offer and innovative activities.

• Given the business landscape, it is therefore imperative for organisations like OxLEP to try and inject positivity into our business community and ‘shout out loud’ about the support that is available to organisations of all shapes and sizes

• OxLEP stands ready to continue to be a delivery partner of choice to our local authority partners – as it has been for many years.

• Some of OxLEP key achievements of note include:

• It has a history of important delivery – from our £107.5m Local Growth Fund investment that will lead to almost 10,000 new jobs being created by 2030, through to over 6,200 businesses being supported directly by OxLEP since 2016, worth over £28.75 million – OxLEP knows Oxfordshire and Oxfordshire knows it is here for them.

• Around 25% of businesses supported by OxLEP during this time were classed as ‘established,’ with a further 25% classified as being ‘start-ups.’ Meanwhile – around 15% were pre-start organisations, with just under 10% supported classed as ‘growing’ (showing 10% annual growth) with 5% seen as scale-up businesses (20% growth per year).

• Its Social Contract programme has secured just over £3.5m of levy pledges from large Oxfordshire businesses to-date, now heading to SMEs and supporting them to create apprenticeship openings. Funding has directly created over 170 apprenticeships in the county, helping businesses to grow and to create opportunities for young people too. If it were not for this programme, that funding would have been lost to Oxfordshire and returned to the treasury. OxLEP would encourage SMEs to speak to our team as funding is still available.

• OxLEP continues to champion Oxfordshire and encourage inward investment into the county – an area where it already has a major record of success. Since 2017 and as of last summer, OxLEP – working alongside the Department for Business and Trade – has helped to attract 295 foreign direct investments into the county, leading to around 6,000 jobs being created or safeguarded. OxLEP continues this work by promoting a variety of sector propositions highlighting Oxfordshire’s key sectors, whilst playing a key and active role in the Oxford-Cambridge Pan Regional Partnership and championing the county’s world-leading innovation ecosystem via a new online platform, Oxford Calling.

• Our future provision includes; the Skills Bootcamps programme, aimed at supporting people to build up valuable sector-specific skills, based on local demand, and provide a direct path and sight into employment for Bootcamp participants. All courses are fully-funded.

Guests had an opportunity to discuss with Nigel the challenges they are facing which included:

• A huge concern over the future opportunities for our children in a rapidly changing world which is becoming increasingly dominated by the significant unknown of AI.

• Rising costs in the world of construction, exacerbated by the ongoing Botley Road work and increasingly challenging city centre road network.

• Availability of capital to support start-ups and why we are so far behind Cambridge in the support that is offered to potentially game-changing start-ups.

• The lack of awareness amongst business leaders about opportunities for them and their businesses provided by organisations such as OxLEP.

• A reluctance to try and make a difference given the perception that local authorities don’t listen to the business community.

Thank you to Nigel and his team for supporting the event.

If you would like to host a future CEO & Leaders Lunch or attend, please contact richard@b4-business.com.

If you would like to engage with OxLEP, please visit www.oxfordshirelep.com