Agenda item

Report of the Chief Executive

Recommendations:-

1.    To delegate to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader of the Council and the Monitoring Officer, authority to take forward and conclude the legal steps necessary to implement the devolution agreement.  This will include consenting on behalf of the Council to the enabling powers order, provided that such order corresponds to the proposals contained in the governance review and scheme.

Consideration was given to the report which detailed how the Government in 2015 agreed the devolution deal which was later endorsed by RMBC by Council in March, 2016. 

This economic deal involved the establishment of a directly Elected Mayor to chair the Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA), working alongside Local Authority Leaders, who would exercise powers and functions devolved from Government and receive an additional £30m “gainshare” annual funding allocation.

After a period of uncertainty, consensus had now been reached on how the deal would be progressed and the powers needed to implement the deal formed part of a governance review and “scheme”  This had been subject to a public consultation exercise and this ended on 15th March, 2020. 

The results of the consultation were to be analysed and, subject to the consultation and decision of the Mayoral Combined Authority, submitted to the Secretary of State, it as anticipated that a Powers Order would be produced by the end of May, 2020.  

The report had been subject to pre-decision scrutiny by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on 18^th March, 2020 where Members had indicated their support for the recommendations.

Resolved:- 

That authority be delegated to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader of the Council and the Monitoring Officer, to take forward and conclude the legal steps necessary to implement the devolution agreement.  This will include consenting on behalf of the Council to the enabling Powers Order, provided that such Order corresponds to the proposals contained in the governance review and scheme.