The creation of Enterprise Zones will fail to rebalance growth in the UK, according to Ian Brinkley, director of socio-economic programmes at The Work Foundation.

In yesterday’s Budget, the Chancellor George Osborne announced the creation of 21 new enterprise zones with a strong emphasis on manufacturing areas of the UK.

Brinkley says: “Enterprise Zones are not an effective way to rebalance regional growth. Much more will have to be done to avoid a two nation recovery.

“Over the year to December 2010, public sector employment fell almost twice as much in Northern England than Southern England. Much of Northern England has a higher share of jobs in the public sector and over the past decade has been more dependent on public sector job growth than in the South.

“Now these sources of job creation are being removed at a faster rate than inthe South, the private sector in the North will have to generate even more jobs. It remains unclear how the government can achieve this goal.”