Agenda item

Andrew Muter, Chief Executive of Newark and Sherwood District Council

Andrew Muter, Chief Executive of Newark and Sherwood District Council presented the report on a Combined Authority (CA), highlighting the following information:

(a)  although prepared by all constituent authorities, the Governance Review is still in draft form and requires further clarification;

(b)  the Governance review sets out the regional context for the CA which is vital as the CA area’s economy  overlaps with other economic areas. Key sectors highlighted include logistics, and transportation;

(c)  a CA would cover the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire economic area. This area was traditionally a manufacturing focussed  low-skilled economy with high levels of unemployment;

(d)  there are important overlapping areas in the wider region, including with the Sheffield City Region in the North, Derbyshire in the West, and Lincolnshire, Doncaster, and Leicestershire in the South and East;

(e)  within Nottinghamshire there is a high level of cohesion and a long history of collaboration, as demonstrated by joint working in the Economic Prosperity Committee.  When moving forward with plans for a CA, there would need to be continued collaboration with the D2N2 LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership), and the relationship with the LEP would need to become stronger;

(f)  the formation of a CA has been discussed at several different meetings and these cumulative discussions have added up to a greater understanding of what a CA means. Singularly, local authorities can encourage growth, but a CA would provide a benefit to all authorities collectively. To aid this, the following needs to be recognised:

-  trust between all authorities would need to be maintained, and governance arrangements should not be made too complicated;

-  the message of working together should be conveyed to central Government;

-  the Governance Review and Scheme will need to be formally agreed by individual councils to establish a CA;

(g)  further amendments are expected to be made to the Governance Review;  the documents will be taken through each individual council, and each council’s formal decision will need to include the delegation to officers to make minor changes to the documents as they progress, where these changes do not effect substantive matters;

(h)  a consultation will run until early February. To help with publicising this, relationships with the media will need to be utilised. It is hoped that the response from the public will be a positive one. The following would need to be addressed in relation to this:

-  the public consultation will run before submission of a final report to Government in mid-February 2015;

-  a summary of the full report would be beneficial, to support the consultation as the report itself is very long;

-  the letter to the public needs to be concise on what a CA is, but also needs to say what it is not;

-  a questionnaire will be issued on the CA. The questionnaire will be available online, with a link from every council’s webpage.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY to

(1)  thank officers for their contributions in drafting all appropriate documents;

(2)  develop a vision and long term ambitions for a Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Combined Authority;

(3)  recommend to its Constituent Councils that they pursue a Combined Authority under the relevant provisions of the Local Democracy Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (and other such provisions as are necessary to ensure the authority has a range of functions to match expectations);

(4)  consider the governance review of the effectiveness and efficiency of transport and arrangements to promote economic development and regeneration within the geographic county, and to consult with the public and key stakeholders on proposals for a combined authority and its range of functions.

Reasons for the decision

To ensure that a decision to establish a combined authority is underpinned by a statement of vision and shared ambition by all nine constituent authorities to the Economic Prosperity Committee.

Other options considered

Not to recommend that constituent authorities pursue a combined authority.  This option was discounted as it was agreed that collective working would be more beneficial than working independently.