ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses what role Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) consider themselves to have in the economic development arena and how this has incorporated network concepts in their regeneration and competitiveness strategies. It discusses the influence of the previous Conservative Government’s policies, with regard to the associated funding regime. The chapter suggests that the Labour Government should take greater responsibility for funding projects based on sound and long-term objectives, rather than an over fascination with prescribing funds towards short-term ‘flavour of the month’ initiatives. It explores how policy delivery has increasingly encompassed a networked approach at both an inter-institutional and inter-firm level. The chapter considers the practicalities and problems that TECs, often in the shape of ‘network brokers’, have encountered in facilitating the building and sustaining of local inter-firm networks in a number of differing scenarios. It argues that TECs appear to have had an almost ‘invisible hand’ in shaping and administering policy, with often the most minimal of resources.
