The Committee met at Manchester Town Hall
Oral evidence, 10 November 2015.
Witnesses
Councillor Paul Carter, Chair, County Councils Network, Councillor John Pollard, Leader, Cornwall Council, Councillor Alan Rhodes, Leader, Nottinghamshire County Council, gave evidence.
Chair
We move on now to our second panel of witnesses. Thank you very much for coming. Could you just say who you are and the organisation you represent?
John Pollard
Certainly. I am John Pollard. I am the Leader of Cornwall Council.
Paul Carter
Paul Carter, the Leader of Kent County Council and Chairman of the County Councils Network.
Alan Rhodes
Good morning. I am Alan Rhodes. I am Leader of Nottinghamshire County Council.
Chair
Thank you very much for coming. I am going to begin by passing over to David Mackintosh to start the questions.
David Mackintosh
Thanks very much for coming today. The Government are talking about city regions as natural candidates for devolution deals. Do you think we should forget about devolution to counties like Cornwall? How do you feel about that city region idea?
Paul Carter
I think that is probably coming my way, Chairman. I am very excited about the opportunity. Two‑tier areas—county unitaries—have to make the case for devolution, and we relish the opportunity to have greater reach and influence in the delivery of not just local government services but the broader public services that are delivered within our areas. The devil is in the detail. We have to look at the conditions that will be attached to devolution deals, but counties have already shown their ambition in the early submissions on 4 September for devolution propositions to their areas. My own county is working on one that will be with the Secretary of State by the end of February. We are taking the time to put that together in the most intelligent way. We hope that what has started in the cities will roll out sometime very soon to the county shires of this country, which represent 48% of the populace of England and are responsible for 41% of the GVA of this country. They need to raise their profile and hopefully receive intelligent devolution packages, against good business cases affecting the public services that we deliver in our areas.
John Pollard
Can I just say, I have to be very careful here? Cornwall obviously has a deal, and we are not a county—we are actually a duchy. I will just get that one in.
Chair
I thought you were a country.
John Pollard
Obviously as a unitary authority based on a county region originally, we see this as a wonderful opportunity, and we are using our deal as a wonderful opportunity to spread the ability to make decisions to all parts of our community. The strength of counties is that they are a community. Clearly we have parishes—we have two tiers—and therefore we can engage in double devolution, making sure that local decisions are made as locally as they can be.
Alan Rhodes
Can I just add something? I agree with you that it is a wonderful opportunity. I would argue that devolution of centrally held powers, funding streams, responsibilities and functions is as important to shire counties as it is to metro areas and city regions. There is a tremendous opportunity here. I am here this morning representing Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and we have been working jointly, as 19 authorities, 15 districts, two cities and two counties to put our deal together. We have already had sight of a first draft, and there is another meeting with Ministers tomorrow. We are selling this hard, simply because we think that there are opportunities for our market towns, villages and rural communities in devolved powers, particularly around the economic development and growth potential in shire counties.
David Mackintosh
Going back to Cornwall, you are unusual in being a single unitary authority. Can you tell us how the deal came about and how it was delivered?
John Pollard
By all means. We managed to be the first non‑metropolitan area to secure a deal, because we were actually ready for it. We had been working for some 12 months before on fairer funding projects and trying to look at the funding of Cornwall in relation to the funding of other areas. We had a member and an officer group doing that, and clearly our officers had been working for many months in trying to develop new ideas for how we could deliver services more effectively. Once the Scottish devolution referendum had happened, we were ready, and I got full council backing to do two things. The first was to prepare the case for Cornwall, and we have put together a very full and detailed case of the things we feel need to be devolved down to Cornwall for Cornwall to be most effective. The idea was—and the council backed the idea—that we would present the case for Cornwall in its broadest terms to all politicians before the general election, and we would then negotiate with the new Government coming in, so that we would have a clear set of proposals before the summer recess. What actually happened was that when we worked with civil servants—the Government very kindly gave some civil servant time to us during purdah—we realised and they realised that we had some really solid ideas developed here that could be implemented. The Chancellor told us, “Let’s see if we can do the deal before the summer recess,” which I must say was a bit of a shock to some of our officers, who had to produce a lot of detail, a lot of documentation, a lot of negotiation, in very short order, but we managed to do that. Therefore, at the end of July, we signed our deal.
David Mackintosh
Thank you very much. Turning to Nottinghamshire, you were the first two‑tier area to put forward devolution proposals. Do you think the Government were surprised?
Alan Rhodes
The Government have been very supportive, actually. We took a view early on that there were opportunities here. We talked to the leaders in both counties and there was clearly an appetite for it; this is 12 months ago now, so quite a long time before the election. We could see the potential, but I do not think, in fairness, we realised the amount of work that both we and more so our officers would have to do, but it is something that we felt we would like to be a frontrunner on, if you like a pioneer, for the county areas and, so far, we have been very pleased with the support we have received and encouragement received from Government on this, although clearly there are issues.
David Mackintosh
Thank you. Can you tell us a bit more about how the two‑tier is working? Is everybody working together well?
Alan Rhodes
One of the great positives around this has been the way that everyone has worked together. You will appreciate that there are 19 authorities from very different areas geographically and demographically, with different political persuasions, and it has been an extremely businesslike process. People have left their politics at the door, if I can say that, and we have been working towards a common purpose. That in itself has been very rewarding and refreshing. I think everyone who has been involved in the process would say that. I would not try to suggest to you that there are not concerns and that there have not been differences between us. That would clearly be nonsense, but there has been a sense of a common purpose among the 19 leaders. Getting 19 local authority leaders and their members through the departure gate at the same time is an extremely challenging thing to try to do, but I think we are getting there.
David Mackintosh
For the County Councils Network in particular, are you worried that devolution is becoming a two‑speed process? There are many counties that are not necessarily in the same place as Greater Manchester, obviously with the exception of Cornwall, which is a duchy.
Paul Carter
There is a danger, but it is up to the Government to empower two‑tier areas through exciting devolution agreements, against the ambitions that are delivered predominantly through combined authorities going forward. I am a great believer that coterminosity of boundaries is really important, and the Government need to work on the scale and size of a devolved package to a population grouping of—what?—there is much talk about 1.5 million to 2 million, but Cornwall very much breaks the rule on that front. In my view, ignore county boundaries at your peril. I think that the counties have an identity and a history. Residents identify with their county, their town and their district, which is very important to me. I am not too hung up about the size and scale. We are lucky in Kent and Medway, having a populace of about 1.65 million, with 12 districts and one unitary. The directly elected mayor is a big issue, I can tell you that now. The relationships are building around combined authorities. Everybody is questioning if the prize is going to be worth the energy and the effort of pulling together combined authorities, in the ability of Government and Whitehall to actually let go and really empower our local government, but our track record from the last five or six years, or 15 or 20 years, has been second to none in local government. As I started by saying, if we can really have influence in our reach to the totality of public service expenditure in our area, and bring to the table what we have learned from the last five or six years, we really can make things hum and sing in a very different way, in my view.
David Mackintosh
Do you think the issue of elected mayors is around the directly elected office or do you think the title of “mayor” is also an issue in a county?
Paul Carter
We are in danger of having four tiers of government. We have towns and parishes; we have districts and boroughs; and we have the county. Do we need another tier of governance on top of that, through a directly elected mayor’s office? I do not think we do. When you look at the Conservative Party manifesto, it talked about directly elected mayors for cities, but then went on to talk about further devolution packages to other areas. It did not have the condition of directly elected mayors to those other areas of the country, which I think is really significant and important. Hopefully the vast majority of the members of the County Councils Network are very concerned about having directly elected mayors imposed upon them.
David Mackintosh
Is that an issue in Cornwall?
John Pollard
It is clearly not an issue for us, in that there is no appetite for it anywhere. That is very clear. For me, the wish of Government to have an elected mayor must be to do with clarity of governance. I believe we have that. We have a strong leader model. I am elected annually by full council, so I am more accountable in that way than an elected mayor would be. Therefore, in terms of the future, we are trying to make sure we develop that role and the governance structures to reflect that accountability and that ability to make decisions. We did not go down the avenue of an elected mayor, although we were warned that, if we want further parts of the deal, which we do, we need to address our governance. We are doing that now and I can explain that later, if you wish. The fact is that our model, of a strong leader, a cabinet and accountability to full council, full council being the sovereign body, works.
David Mackintosh
Lots of county councils and indeed unitary authorities have huge social care pressures. Do you think that health devolution will go some way to addressing those concerns?
Paul Carter
I think there are massive opportunities. I was gagging to get involved in the last debate with Manchester, where the health and social care support and preventative agenda are absolutely crucial to delivering better use of the National Health Service pound and better use of the social care pound. If we can really deliver really good community health, primary care and social care, deliver the team around the patient and the team around the GP practice, in my view, we really can make a massive difference to the admissions into acute hospitals and the utilisation of the National Health Service pound, and get that money better spent in good primary community health preventative services, which in some cases are accessible seven days a week, 24 hours a day. That will reduce hospitalisation enormously, but I could bang on about it for a long time. Kent is very privileged in having one of the most advanced vanguard practices and a pioneer authority as well. It is something that we have been working on for many years and will be a significant part of our devolution submission.
Mr Mark Prisk
Just turning to some of the practicalities of delivering service, what would Cornwall and Nottinghamshire, in this case, see as being the principal challenge of the delivery of a public service to what is a more diverse and spread‑out population of town and rural areas? I know that in Cornwall, for example, a bus service is obviously very important. How do you make sure that both St Ives and Saltash, at different ends of the county—sorry, the duchy, you are quite correct, and I should know that—are being satisfied?
John Pollard
As a unitary authority since 2009, we have been wrestling with those issues anyway. What we have done in the last five or six years is to establish the unitary authority in people’s minds, and it is accepted, but we are struggling to, as you say, deliver services to different areas with different backgrounds. It is very difficult. We keep looking at the practicalities. If you take the devolution deal, that can only help us, in my view. For the integration of health, for instance, we are a pioneer authority. We have models that are working extremely well, which are based on shared budgets. If we can integrate that budget and have one service, one management and one delivery, we will do the business, and that is our challenge under devolution. We need to have a joint business plan that reflects that by next April. In terms of the delivery, devolving the authority—the ability—to local level can only help. We will have control of the bus network. We will not be reliant on a national network. We will need it and will use it, but we can adapt for the needs of a rural remote area like Lizard and a more populated area like Truro. As you know, it is 100 miles from one end to the other. Those are the challenges we have to deal with anyway. We believe that devolution helps us.
Mr Mark Prisk
Just before I come to Nottinghamshire, you mentioned double devolution specifically. In that context, do you envisage an enhanced role for the rural parishes, as well as the town councils?
John Pollard
Absolutely, and we are encouraging our towns and our rural parishes to come up with what we call a deal, a package or a plan of the kinds of things they would like to adopt, the kinds of ways in which they can work with Cornwall Council to deliver services in a much more reactive and local manner. That is happening, and it is a growing movement. The problem there is that we cannot resource all the demands, but we are working hard to do that. It is a growing phenomenon, this ability of towns not to just accept something we cannot deal with any longer, but to work with us to plan the future. It is working well.
Alan Rhodes
We are clearly going to have to focus more on the co-ordination of our limited transport resources, greater leverage over bus operators, integrated ticketing and local infrastructure prioritisation. Ours is a deal based around economic development and growth. Clearly connectivity is key to growth. We are very fortunate in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire to have the M1 corridor and A1 corridor, and HS2 coming in. One of the hubs has been identified as Toton in Nottinghamshire. The Midland Main Line electrification has recently been unpaused, and we have the East Coast Main Line. We have great connectivity north to south, but do not have great connectivity east to west. We need to deal with that too, but there is a will to do this and a recognition among all the partners in the agreement that transport connectivity has to be a priority for us.
Mr Mark Prisk
You mentioned earlier the fact that you had to get 19 local authorities through the gate. I think you said 19; is that right? There are 19 units within the team. In the delivery of services, does this make it far more complicated than perhaps Mr Pollard’s unitary authority?
Alan Rhodes
Undoubtedly. We are all aware of the complications of working with 19 different authorities, all with their own very different demands, all with their own clear identity, keen to ensure that they get a good deal for their areas as well. One thing that has been developed over the many months that we have been working together is the recognition that it is not just about your own area; there is the big picture here around Notts, Derbyshire and what we can do through working together and what we can achieve. That has been the message that has come through in our many deliberations.
Mr Mark Prisk
On a similar tone, clearly it must be simpler as a unitary authority. One of the challenges here is getting everybody to agree that, in making a devolution deal, not everyone is going to benefit equally. Not every town or village is going to see exactly the same. There are the economic differences between Saltash, which would look to Plymouth, whereas the west would look to perhaps Truro and Falmouth, and the industrial towns of Camborne and Redruth. Do you feel, Mr Pollard, that your double devolution deal is a way of embracing and getting those communities to participate and engage? You do not have the same problem as a two‑tier authority. Is that your solution to engagement?
John Pollard
In terms of engagement, we have been very clear that the devolution deal that we secured was not for Cornwall Council, but for Cornwall, and therefore it was a deal that came about by partnership. We do have advantages in terms of being one very clear geographical area. We have one coterminous LEP. Our NHS management is Cornwall‑wide and no further, so we have been working for a long time on those partnerships. It seems to me the partnership that will actually deliver double devolution is the partnership between all those partners, and the towns and parishes as well. Different areas will have a different impetus, really. If you take the east, they are part of the Plymouth city deal. There are advantages that come to Cornwall there, because a lot of the employment for the south-east is in Plymouth. In terms of the local enterprise partnership, they are very clear that we are trying to make sure that we focus the resources of the growth deal where they can be delivered, so we are looking to Bodmin for food and different areas for different aspects. It is a matter not of equity, but equality, really—the equality of opportunity for areas to develop what they need in the way in which they can deliver it.
Mr Mark Prisk
Lastly, Mr Carter, looking at the picture as a whole, we have certainly seen some evidence and some commentary that two‑tier authority areas naturally have a greater struggle to get to the gate of devolution. What can be done to change that so that there is a more unified approach to this? Do you see two‑tier as a particular hurdle in the way in which devolution is being offered as deals?
Paul Carter
Everybody would agree that two‑tier areas have their challenges, but you would need to look at the track record of working together. Let us look at the public service agreements and the local area agreements that were carved out however many years ago it was—10 years ago or whatever—when local government came together with other public service providers to deliver better and improved outcomes for our residents. The troubled families programme would be another example of where, despite some of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, two‑tier has got on, done the job and delivered. For the local enterprise partnership and local growth fund submissions in prioritising schemes, we have all had to work together in a mature way to put the proposition, if we are to get the prize from Government in devolution arrangements, to prove that we can work well together and deliver governance arrangements with a clear decision‑making process. There is a lot of mystery around what a combined authority constitutes and what it does not constitute. In a metropolitan area, a combined authority is very different from a combined authority in a two‑tier area, and one needs to accept that the responsibilities of districts, boroughs and counties are very different from metropolitan authorities. Therefore, for the governance arrangements and working together, we should not try to find the same solutions for both. I hope that we can arrive at a different solution in the counties.
Mr Mark Prisk
Just briefly on this, what would you therefore say is the single thing that helps a two‑tier area engage with this process? What is the exemplar that you would look at to say, “This factor is the thing that helps two‑tier areas to succeed”?
Paul Carter
Hopefully if we get the submission right, the prize is worth the energy and effort in delivering additional responsibility shared between all tiers of local government, in our areas. There is a real appetite not to miss the boat and, where there are those strong relationships, to work together across other parts of the public sector as well as within the family of local government. We have come into local government to try to make a difference and make a change. If we can have influence and reach in how the totality of the £7.5 billion is spent in the Kent area, how exciting is that? It is not necessarily for fiscal devolution, but real influence in shaping the delivery of that public expenditure in our area. It is place‑based budgeting.
Alan Rhodes
What is important in two‑tier area working is the strength and quality of the partnerships. It is important for a district leader to feel that he or she had just as relevant and important a contribution to make as any upper‑tier authority. We have four upper‑tier authorities, two cities and two counties, and 15 districts. What has been challenging is keeping everybody focused and engaged because, as we all know in the council these days, it is extremely challenging and time‑consuming. It is very easy to be distracted doing the day job, but it is important that this is seen as a partnership of equals, if I can put it that way, and that people feel that they have a relevant role around the table, that they can speak frankly and openly with each other, and that we are working in partnership in a serious way, and it is not perceived to be driven by the upper‑tier authorities. There is always a danger of that because, very often, for purely practical reasons, I suspect, Government tend to communicate more easily and freely with upper‑tier authorities. The channels of communication tend to be more regular and more open than they perhaps are with the other district authorities. That can sometimes be challenging in itself, because then people start to feel as if they are being excluded or that it is not an equal partnership. We have had all of these things to deal with in the past 12 months. We are still meeting. There is still a sense of purpose around it. We have ironed out our various problems as they have arisen, but the strength and the quality of the partnership is key to taking it forward in a two‑tier area.
Chair
Can I just follow on from that? It seems to me Cornwall is fairly straightforward; you have one council, so that is a clear method of governance. In Kent you have two tiers, but you are looking to do a devolution approach based on your county and district relationship. Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire have a more interesting conundrum, have they not? You have districts, counties and then a combined authority on top. Do you think the public is going to wear another tier of governance—three tiers of government in one area? There are parishes as well, of course, if you throw those in. You have quite a few of those as well. Does it make it very complicated?
Alan Rhodes
It is not an easy sell, is it? This is the conundrum that we have. It is another tier of local government, and we are going to have to ensure that the deal that comes from Government is good enough to be able to sell the concept of a devo deal and an elected mayor.
Chair
That is four tiers then, if you have an elected mayor as well.
Alan Rhodes
You are absolutely right. Unless the deal is good enough, it is going to be an almost impossible thing to sell, so the deal has to be good and we have to be able to talk to our communities about the benefits of what we have done and the deal we have achieved.
Chair
Is that not a slight nudge towards unitaries and changing the whole structure of local government? Would you want to do this as a combined authority?
Alan Rhodes
If I had a crystal ball, which I do not, I would not be at all surprised if unitaries were on the agenda at some point, although they are not at the moment of course. In the future, who knows? If somebody had said 10 years ago that devolution would be on the agenda now, I would have said that that was unlikely.
Chair
I know that Paul wants to come in, but I just want to raise another issue within this, which is the issue of consent in the legislation. One person’s consent is another person’s veto. Cornwall has a nice easy job, because you can agree with yourselves. You are one council. For Paul, it is slightly more challenging, because you have to get the districts and counties together. For Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, there are districts and counties, and some concerns around some of the north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire districts looking towards Sheffield. The county veto what the districts want to do and the districts veto what the county wants to do. Is that really a sensible position to get to, in terms of trying to reach a conclusion to this?
Alan Rhodes
I do not think it is. We need to find a way through it. The districts involved are Bassetlaw and four north Derbyshire districts—Chesterfield, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover and Derbyshire Dales. I actually live in Bassetlaw. I am a Bassetlaw district councillor, as well as a member of Nottinghamshire County Council. It is an issue. Bassetlaw clearly faces north. I can only talk about Bassetlaw; I cannot really talk about the four Derbyshire authorities, but Bassetlaw clearly faces north, although it has to be said that, in terms of travel to work, the most recent study showed that the vast majority of Bassetlaw residents said they lived and worked in Bassetlaw. The travel to work argument is actually fairly flimsy, but we need to recognise that there are geographic issues involved. I do agree with Paul that neither this Government nor any other Government should start to break up the shire counties, because that is not necessarily a good thing. Of course, the other thing we need to remember is that districts are big places. It depends where you live in Bassetlaw: if you live in Harworth or where I live, you might well think that Sheffield is not too far away; if you live in the south of the district, you might think that Sheffield is a very long way away. It is not quite as simple as it seems, but the challenge for us—and this is the important point—is that we find a way to ensure that Bassetlaw can continue to have the benefits of its involvement as a non‑constituent member of the Sheffield city deal and, at the same time, is fully engaged as a constituent member in Nottinghamshire, where it is based geographically.
Chair
I want to bring in Paul. I just want to say that you cannot have a district that, in the end, is involved in electing two mayors in different places, can you? That is going to force the issue as to where the district actually wants to—
Alan Rhodes
Sure, but of course, Bassetlaw will not be involved in electing the mayor in South Yorkshire. It is not a constituent member.
Chair
That is the interesting argument about what the legislation allows. Paul, do you want to pick up on this?
Paul Carter
It comes back to my earlier point about the size and scale of the population. How critical is it to have the 1.52 million? Clearly it is not in Cornwall, and there are significant parts of the county landscape that do not need to merge with others. Some will. Just coming back to the conversation we were having about unitaries, if you look at the evidence, there are some small unitaries, and for their viability and sustainability financially size does matter in building up a populace in excess of 500,000 to sustain sensible unitary counties. It is absolutely essential. It is the small ones that, from my knowledge, are really struggling in their viability as it becomes ever tighter. Coming back to the debate about whether or not counties could all become unitaries, you could not run Kent as one big county. The diversity and the needs of east Kent and other parts of the county are totally different, from very prosperous west Kent to extraordinary poverty in the east of the county. You would have to reinvent area‑based governance arrangements, and this, that and the other. My view is that the pain is not worth the gain. Make two‑tier really hum and sing in the most efficient and effective way to deliver the very best public services to the populace. I know that it is easily said, but delivering it is a challenge.
Chair
I have one question, then, and Jo has one final question as well. To come back to the health and social care issues, this is important. I heard how positive you were about this, Paul. Is there still a sense that, in talking about joint working and trying to deliver services together on a holistic basis, the NHS really does not want to let go? I know we have had a chance to look at paragraph 19 of the Bill. It is essentially saying that, in the end, health spending goes back and is accountable to the Secretary of State, and nothing changes there. Do you think this is still a rigid point of view that is ultimately a problem and an obstacle to this joined‑up approach that you want to see?
Paul Carter
Yes, there is evidence of enormous reluctance to change, but I have great faith in the direction that Simon Stevens is setting out in his five‑year plan, with the acceptance that there has to be change at pace and scale—and fast. Those vanguard projects and pioneer authorities that can really cut the mustard and be empowered to deliver the concept into practice will start to deliver real transformational change, but it does have to involve pooled resource between social care and health budgets in CCG areas and boundaries. One should not discount the problem of the self‑funders and the state funders, which you started on earlier. If you take Kent, probably 25% of the elderly populace is entitled to free social care provision. That is about £500 million-worth of services. The National Health Service budget is about £2.4 billion in Kent, but you then have the 75% or more who are paying for their own social care packages. The totality of the social care expenditure in Kent is approaching similar to the National Health Service budget. How do you make sure that you have equity and fairness for those services that are free at the point of delivery and those that have to be means‑tested? It is a horrible complexity that gets in the way of trying to marry together pooled resources and pooled funds. We have to find a way through it, and the Care Act and the Dilnot implementation would have made some of that stuff easier, which now cannot take place until 2020.
Chair
John, you are obviously doing health and social care under your devolution deal. Do you want to say a little bit about this issue of accountability and the NHS role there?
John Pollard
It will be difficult. There are stones along the way but, at the end of the day, the health service in Cornwall needs to do integration just as much as the council needs to do integration, otherwise we will not be able to deliver the services to an ageing population in the way in which we need to. Therefore, that is the impetus. The glory of the deal for us is that we have Government backing, so that we can make sure that the NHS is at the table with the same willingness as the council and the other partners, because we have an obligation to the Government to produce an integrated business plan within the next six months. For me, that gives the structure, as long as we can maintain good relationships and the willingness.
Chair
Do you not worry, though, that in the end, you are going to be the one who is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the NHS, because the public will now see that it is all devolved to the council?
John Pollard
Frankly, Cornwall Council is blamed for anything anyway, so there is nothing new there. The fact is that this is not about blame; this is about delivery. This is what the client on the ground, the patient, the elderly person, or the person in need of support actually gets, and we have to forget about the blame. Obviously we are all accountable, but that is the prime motivator for what we are trying to do: to deliver a better service in straitened times.
Jo Cox
I have one last question on overview and scrutiny. How are you all going to adapt the overview and scrutiny framework, as set out in the Bill, for your quite different areas?
John Pollard
Most of that is designed for combined authorities in how the interface between the different elements will work. In terms of our deal, we are making sure that there is a lot of scrutiny and overview involved. Clearly since the signing of the deal, we have been developing our structures for implementation and particularly for monitoring. We have a monitoring board, which is representatives of the NHS, representatives of the LEP and representatives of the Isles of Scilly, which are obviously involved although not part of the deal. Our MPs are there, as well as the council, as overarching monitoring. Within the council, we have a health and social care scrutiny committee, which has co‑opted partners from outside the council. That will function, as it has before, as an overview with a policy scrutiny element. I am quite comfortable that there is scrutiny in place. What we are doing now is looking at strengthening the governance and scrutiny element within the governance. For instance, we are talking to the Boundary Commission to make sure that we have got the representation right and that all those elements are in place. We have the Centre for Public Scrutiny coming and supporting us in what we are doing to make sure that that is fit for purpose as well. We are looking at what Cornwall or any local government will look like in five years’ time and, looking ahead, making sure that our devolved powers help us to be fit for purpose for the delivery of the services. There is a lot still going on in terms of thinking and development, and giving that assurance that what we do has some overview and scrutiny to it.
Paul Carter
A lot will depend on what devolved packages areas get to make sure they do have the right oversight and scrutiny arrangements. My answer would be totally in line with John. That is the way the County Councils Network is thinking. One point I would like to make is that there is bespoke devolution, but there has to be generic devolution with commercial rates and the other £12 billion coming our way sometime soon. We spend an awful lot of time talking about the potential devolution around bespoke deals, but have to start to get up to speed about what generic devolution would look like, with that £12 billion coming to local government with a load of responsibilities and hopefully the adequate amount of finance and funding to support that responsibility. That is going to be a massive challenge for local government, and we need to get out heads together, working with central Government, as to what that could be and how that could look.
Alan Rhodes
For us it is work in progress. We have set up a governance group and we are discussing the creation of an overview and scrutiny framework with Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire colleagues. We have to reflect the political balance and the different types of authorities that are involved as well. We are still working on it; it is work in progress. It will have to be properly scrutinised as well. We cannot allow that not to happen. Government will demand that anyway.
Alison Thewliss
I just wanted to pick up on the external scrutiny. You mentioned the Centre for Public Scrutiny, so I just wondered how each of you were looking to involve the public in this process, so that they have an understanding of devolution and some kind of involvement, so that there is some sort of public accountability there, rather than just political accountability.
John Pollard
That is a very interesting dynamic really, because we have created a devolution deal for Cornwall, and therefore it is important that Cornwall understands what is happening and is signed up to it. Obviously the council does a lot of work in that line. At the minute, I am halfway through a series of public meetings across Cornwall, and have one in Launceston tonight, so I have to dash back, trying to make sure we explain and have that focus. Clearly all the members of the council are publicly accountable through the electoral system, so that is another element and, if we are working with our town and parish councils, that gives another interface and another level of accountability.
Alan Rhodes
We have already started talking about it in the media, but unfortunately they seem to be transfixed with the prospect of an elected mayor, rather than interested in talking about what the possible benefits might be for their readers and for our communities. That is frustrating, it is fair to say. Once the deal is agreed, there will have to be a period of public consultation, when we will have the opportunity to talk about what is on the table and what the benefits are. There will also have to be stakeholder consultation. Business is obviously very interested in this. We had a good discussion about it at the local enterprise partnership on Thursday, and of course there are others. The police and crime commissioners of both counties are extremely interested in what is happening, as are the chief constables and other public sector bodies as well. There will be a hugely important consultation to take place. At the moment, we have very little to consult on because, as I said earlier about another matter, the deal is a work in progress. We have tried to get the message out via the media, but it is very difficult. It is a very complex, rather narrow discussion that we are having at the moment anyway. If you are not involved in the public sector at a senior level or in local government in some way, it is not really a conversation that you need to have at the moment, but there certainly will be a need for that eventually. Going back to an earlier discussion, how we are going to explain and sell the idea of an elected mayor as another level of governance is certainly going to be challenging.
Bob Blackman
Just very briefly, John, you mentioned that you are involving MPs in your structure. How are you involving MPs?
John Pollard
We have a monitoring board, and there are six MPs. They are all Conservative. They are sending representation on to that monitoring board.
Bob Blackman
They are not all going.
John Pollard
No, I think there will probably be three of them. We are trying to develop a system where MPs take on an area to champion. Certainly the history of what has happened in Cornwall is that has been the case. One or two have got heavily involved in transport, and it is the same thing in health. In terms of the overall scrutiny, the monitoring board is at the executive level, so all those areas that are involved as partners, including the MPs. They are very important to us; they are our voice here in London.
Bob Blackman
Turning to you, Alan, have you considered using MPs in a similar guise to what is going on in Cornwall?
Alan Rhodes
We have had some very interesting discussions with our parliamentary colleagues. As you would imagine, there are voices that are not necessarily in favour of the proposal that we are pursuing, and there are others who are very much in favour. The minority are actually somewhere in between, and they are rather waiting for more detail, which is where quite a lot of elected councillors are as well. They want to see more detail before they can commit one way or the other, at this stage, from our perspective.
Chair
Thank you very much indeed for coming to give evidence this afternoon. That has been really helpful to us, thank you. Oral evidence: The Government’s Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, HC 369 36