A leading employment adviser to prime minister, David Cameron, has urged councils and their business partners to set up ‘rebel’ local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) if a formal application is rejected by Whitehall.

Emma Harrison, chair of Action for Employment (a4e), told the Local Government Association conference last week that being told by Whitehall they could not form an official LEP should not act as a barrier to dynamic localities seeking to kick-start economic growth and job opportunities.

Citing her local area in the Peak District, Derbyshire, Ms Harrison told delegates in Birmingham that a recent LEP application had been rejected by the DCLG.

But, instead of ‘wallowing’ in their failure to secure government approval for local growth initiatives, she said, the authority and local businesses simply formed a ‘rebel LEP’ and proceeded to formulate growth plans similar to those found across the Government’s approved zones.

‘Around 500 businesses turned up to the first meeting – more than attended neighbouring, official LEP meetings,’ she said. ‘It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission from Whitehall.’

The call for direct, co-ordinated action on economic growth by councils and businesses met with strong support.

One council leader said: ‘How refreshing to hear somebody who has a degree of influence at Number 10 – however large or small – talk so candidly about not bothering to await Whitehall approval. If this Government is serious about localism... then it would back Ms Harrison’s approach. [Local government secretary] Eric Pickles, we know, wants authorities to get on with regenerating their areas once they have tools such as the general power of competence at their disposal.’

Despite broad support for the initiatives, some councils have been critical of the pace at which the Government has rolled out its LEP and enterprise zone programmes – flagship coalition policies designed to stimulate economic growth, and higher employment rates, across Britain’s moribund economies.

In the meantime, councils and local businesses which fail to elicit Whitehall support to adjust local business tax systems, for example, have been left with the challenge of tackling embedded unemployment and stymied growth on tighter budgets.