Agenda item - Devolution Update

10.1 Cllr Bella Sankey, Leader of the Council presented to the committee. She was joined by Tom Cottam, Head of the Cabinet Office.

10.2 Cllr Wilkinson asked how the committee would receive ongoing updates and how the council’s scrutiny committees would compliment the SBSA scrutiny. Cllr Sankey said that it had been sometime since her last update on the issue to scrutiny and that she was happy to come back as often as committee wanted. She said that the Strategic Authority Board would be meeting monthly. She said that councillors from BHCC would be involved in scrutiny at the strategic authority and that it was important that elected members in Brighton & Hove know what is going on and get regular updates.

10.3 Cllr Sykes asked about the funding figures in the slides and how they added up, saying that it seemed very front loaded. Cllr Sankey said that there was a budget they were receiving as part of the investment fund of £1.4bn over 30 years and some of that was being released in the pre-mayoral stage, and that they wouldn’t get the full regular amount until the mayor is in place. She said that they were also receiving funding that was being passported to local authorities such as transport and skills, which may be where the discrepancy is.

10.4 Michael Creedy asked about the challenge of treating each part of the large area of Sussex equally. Cllr Sankey said Sussex was made up of clearly varied and unique communities, that they were not all the same and shouldn’t be treated the same due to their varying needs. She said that nonetheless they are stronger together focusing on challenges and thinking strategically across Sussex. She said that people across Sussex wanted many of the same things such as good transport, good healthcare, and good jobs.

10.5 Cllr Winder spoke about the huge opportunities and asked how they can stop people feeling that they have lost some democracy or are being left behind. Cllr Sankey said that devolution was happening alongside local government reorganisation, which caused confusion, and meant that they needed to explain this to people. She said that they had not wanted huge unitary authorities in Sussex, which is why they had asked for five in Sussex, and that the government was minded to go for four. She said that people can feel more connected to unitary authorities as there is no confusion about which council is responsible for what, and which councillor to contact. She said that she was pleased that the government had brought back the supplementary voting system for mayoral elections. She said that Greater Manchester was a good example of when it is done right people can feel empowered.

10.6 Cllr Fishleigh asked how it would impact the local plan and whether housing targets would be set by government or the mayor. Cllr Sankey said that the local plan and planning would remain with local authorities.

10.7 Cllr Goddard agreed with Michael Creedy’s point about connecting places across the county. He said that it takes a different type of politician and culture to do devolution well. He said that they did not have a decade to do devolution well as other places had. Cllr Sankey agreed that they did not have a decade to do devolution. She said that they had made a lot of progress in the last two years, which showed the accelerated pace they were working at. She said that it was incredible how far they had come, especially with both East and West Sussex County Councils changing administration during the process.

10.8 Mark Strong spoke about the work in other strategic authorities across the country and the need for building capacity with stakeholders such as the county’s universities and the national park authority. He also asked about passporting funding and how this would be decided. Cllr Sankey said that it was important that they did not try to copy the work of any one place as there was lots of good work across combined authorities, as well as things that hadn’t gone so well that they could learn from. Regarding stakeholders she said that now the SBSA was established there would be more scope to bring people in. She said that there would be associate members of the strategic authority board, including the chair of the South Downs National Park. She said that they were establishing a business board to bring in key businesses and that she would be happy to take away the points about civic society. She said that passporting would evolve and at the moment they were following government formula.

10.9 Cllr Miller asked if fire and rescue services would continue to operate as east and west or if they would merge and asked about growth hubs. Tom Cottam said that the fire services had started the transitional arrangements and were looking at how it would work operationally. He said that the strategic authority was receiving funding and would look at what the needs of businesses are.

10.10 Cllr Miller asked about the ways for overview & scrutiny committees to feed into the strategic authority. Tom Cottam said that he would get back to the committee on that and that the nominations from each local authority to the strategic authority scrutiny roles would provide that connection.

10.11 RESOLVED Place Overview & Scrutiny Committee notes the update to members on Devolution.