Agenda item

Report E/22/21 sets out the steps being taken by City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council (the Constituent Councils) towards the creation of a Combined Authority for York and North Yorkshire. The report includes details of the ‘minded’ to Devolution Deal, the Governance Review and the Scheme which has been prepared for consultation.

The Leader of the Council introduced the report which set out the steps being taken by City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council (the Constituent Councils) towards the creation of a Combined Authority for York and North Yorkshire. The report also included details of the Devolution Deal, the Governance Review and the Scheme which had been prepared for consultation.

Members noted that on 1 August 2022 the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced that the Government was minded to enter into a Devolution Deal with York and North Yorkshire under which the region would benefit from £540 million of new Government investment to spend on local priorities to produce growth, together with a range of devolved powers.  The Devolution Deal was dependent upon the City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council establishing a Combined Authority for the area with an elected Mayor.

The report explained that since the announcement, negotiations and further work had been undertaken about the detail of the proposed deal, the structure of the proposed Combined Authority and the process to be followed to create it, subject to the necessary consultation. The report sought to update Selby District Council members on this work and the next steps to be taken by the City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council.

The Executive acknowledged that to develop the proposal to establish a Mayoral Combined Authority, there needed to be consideration of a governance review and the publication of a Scheme if it was concluded that the exercise of statutory functions was likely to be improved by the creation of a Mayoral Combined Authority. The Scheme would be subject to an eight-week public consultation across York and North Yorkshire in October 2022.

Members asked for clarification on some figures and felt that the report required more detail as to what tangible benefits the area would see from of the money being invested in the deal, in particular the return ‘per head’ of the population compared to other Mayoral areas in the United Kingdom. The Leader believed that the cost equated to the Teeside scheme but not as much as the West Yorkshire one.

Officers were asked to investigate comparisons of the funding with schemes in the south of the country.

Further queries were put regarding the York Central Scheme, grant funding City of York Council had received and project funding for affordable low carbon homes in York.

Officers advised Members that there were elements of the deal that had changed between its current iteration and the original bid, and that responses to the Members’ queries would be provided.

The Leader commended the report.

RESOLVED:

1.    The Executive supported the steps being taken by City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council (the Constituent Councils) towards the creation of a Combined Authority for York and North Yorkshire, and in particular noted:

(a)the ‘minded’ to Devolution Deal;

(b)the Governance Review; and

(c)the Scheme which had been prepared for consultation.

2.    Officers were asked to provide responses to the queries raised in the debate following the meeting.

REASON FOR DECISION:

To ensure Members were consulted in relation to the proposed Devolution Deal and the next steps being taken towards the creation of a Combined Authority for York and North Yorkshire.