HOW many people know about devolution and Local Enterprise Partnerships, or LEPs, as they are called? They are partnerships in every county between the locally elected councils and representatives of the business community to help promote the economy, providing opportunities for skills training and infrastructure 'to unlock development'.

Devolution – devolving power and money to local areas – sounds good but then the question arises of how. It seems that devolution is mainly to elected mayors, larger councils and LEPs.

Local district councils gave way to a unitary council for Wiltshire a few years ago. Now there is a move for Wiltshire and Swindon to become one council. Already there is one body where they are working together. It is the Swindon and Wiltshire LEP, known as SWLEP, where the leaders of both councils and one other councillor from each council together with eight representatives from the business community make up the board.

This board has an informative website (google SWLEP), its own officers and support from officers of both councils. The two monthly meetings move round the county and are efficient, with time for questions. Members of the public are welcomed and it was encouraging to see at the most recent meeting that a business representative is co-ordinating a scheme for self-build houses on brownfield sites.

There have been several changes since LEPs were first created in 2010 as a replacement of the regional bodies. Originally they had varied corporate structures. Now they have assurance frameworks, which are frameworks agreed by government about the way they should work. They are organisations through which the government channels significant amounts of money.

It is said that all the infrastructure schemes go through rigorous appraisals. However, the experience with one scheme was that the question of 'Can it be made to work' was never addressed, despite frequent requests that it should be. Most schemes can be addressed if there is a limitless amount of funding. For example, if it is found that one bottleneck is released but it creates another, how much would need to be spent to achieve a solution to the bottleneck that has been caused? Should that be included in the cost of the original scheme?

LEPs are secretive, though perhaps beginning to be less so than in 2010. There are calls for them to be less secretive and SWLEP is beginning to make major efforts to make people more aware of what it does. It is also thought that there may be too close a relationship between public and private business. Supporting business with public funding is generally acknowledged to be a sensitive area.

While there are pluses, one problem seems to be how to ensure devolution does not mean taking decisions further away from the public and their elected representatives.

The Government wishes to promote businesses to provide jobs and help the economy generally.

Its perception is that collaboration between the democratically elected and business is right. In the same way that it is vital for people to participate when local and strategic plans are being drawn up for their area, using the statutory consultation processes, they can also become involved in the choice of schemes that are being funded through LEPs.

Not everything can be funded at once so which schemes will be prioritised? Will they be controversial schemes? Circumstances change. Are any changes needed? Which is best value for money? We are fortunate to have SWLEP which is welcoming and well run.