Chairman Paul Woolston and his Government-backed group of business and council leaders have had it made clear to them that the only way their success will be measured is in jobs.

And in case they need that narrowed down even further, ministers want to see those jobs in an enterprise zone.

The North East enterprise zone, much like the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, needs to be a success if the Government has any hopes of offsetting massive public-
sector jobs in the region.

Put simply, there are fewer and fewer places for ministers to visit in the region which aren't located in an area of rising unemployment.

So before anything else, Mr Woolston, an accountant by trade, has been told to make the enterprise zone, located around Nissan and on the banks of the River Tyne, a successful home for new manufacturing jobs.

Among the many trials set to distract him is the ever-present risk of mission creep, as the Government slowly adds to the roles it wants the partnership to carry out.

At the same time it needs to increase its popularity in the region. Perception is everything. North East Local Enterprise Partnership members are growing frustrated at hearing their name bad-mouthed in comparisons with their counterparts in Teesside.

Many people will tell you that while Teesside is getting on with the job, its North Eastern counterpart is still stalling.

There is a little truth in this, but not as much as the cynics would have you believe.

The Teesside partnership was largely already in existence before the Government ordered its creation, in its Tees Valley Unlimited form, with the various plans and growth ideas simply moved across into the partnership.

And while the Teesside team, once known as the famous five, have appeared to be more united over where to place their enterprise zone, a lot of this is good image management.

The North East partnership, once known as the secret seven, had a very public falling out over where to locate their enterprise zone. It is not difficult to imagine that behind the scenes there were disagreements, battles which simply went unreported by the local Press.

It is hoped Gardiner Richardson can change some of these problems, having being brought in to offer the North East partnership some much-needed PR advice. Showing who the key officers are, setting out where and how often it meets and exactly how it deals with the treasury are all topics which any PR firm must surely cover adequately if it is to justify the use of public funds for publicity when the seven councils forming the partnership already have their own press office teams at their disposal.

Once that basic problem is solved, the big issue facing the partnership from a presentational view point is the need to take the lead regionally while not upsetting some well-established egos.

The American playwright Gore Vidal gave us the charming phrase "every time a friend succeeds, I die a little." This should be written on the business cards of the various groups, councils, agencies and semi-quangos seeking to fill the regional leadership void created with the demise of development agency One North East.

There are those who are very happy to bad-mouth the partnership, using a rather too easily available evidence base, it has to be said, in order to present themselves as the logical alternative when the region seeks dialogue with central Government.

Some of this rivalry will disappear with time. The rest will only go following success, which once again is linked directly to the enterprise zone.

Mr Woolston knows all this, and he has the time to solve the issues facing him. So long as he can get that enterprise zone to work.

There are fewer and fewer places for ministers to visit in the region which aren't in an area of rising unemploym