Devolution dream stutters onwards

Mayoral authority yet to get into gear

It’s nearly 15 months since Luke Campbell was elected as the first Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire and the natives are getting restless.

Having been launched with a fanfare following a devolution deal for the region, the Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority (HEYCA) with Campbell at the helm was launched in May last year.

So how’s it going?

With new Prime Minister Andy Burnham promising greater spending powers for Metro Mayors and their authorities, the good ship HEYCA should be making waves.

However, all the signs are that it’s still struggling to limp out of dry dock.

It’s not just me saying it. At this week’s full meeting of East Riding Council, Councillor Phil Redshaw shared his thoughts on the matter by taking the opportunity to speak about a minute from a recent scrutiny committee.

To be clear, Redshaw is not a political bruiser who takes wild verbal swipes at opponents whenever he can. In fact, he’s about as thoughtfully-measured and mild-mannered as you can get.

He’s also got long experience of local government, having once been a member of Humberside County Council back in the day. In other words, he knows the mechanics of how publicly-elected bodies are meant work.

As such, it’s worth reading every word he said.

“The latest scrutiny minutes make one thing absolutely clear: The Hull and East Riding Combined Authority (HEYCA) is now the main gateway for Government regeneration funding.

“This is not a technical adjustment. It is a major transfer of power — away from councils like ours, and directly into the hands of the Combined Authority and the Mayor.

“At the same time, East Riding is losing £32.2 million from its core Government settlement. That means our future investment — in transport, skills, regeneration and infrastructure — now depends heavily on HEYCA’s competence, its governance, and its ability to treat every part of this region fairly.

“And members should be concerned, because the early signs from HEYCA are troubling. Key strategies have been delayed. Governance has lacked clarity. Major decisions have slipped.

“Papers have been late. In public meetings, the Mayor has repeatedly relied on officers to explain basic responsibilities. These are not routine teething problems. They are warning signs of an organisation struggling to lead at the very moment it is being handed hundreds of millions of pounds.

“Political criticism is growing across the region. Council leaders, MPs, businesses and skills providers have all voiced frustration with slow progress, unclear priorities and limited engagement. Local media has highlighted confusion in meetings and a lack of strategic direction.

“And this matters, because HEYCA now controls the £400 million Mayoral Investment Fund, around £20 million a year for transport, the Adult Skills Budget, the Local Growth Fund and programmes like Connect to Work.

“If HEYCA fails to deliver, East Riding loses out. Our residents lose out. Our businesses lose out.

“As Liberal Democrats, we have always said that devolution must strengthen local democracy — not weaken it. It must bring decisions closer to communities, not push them further away and it must treat rural, coastal and market‐town communities with the same seriousness as the largest urban centre.

“It is essential that Mayor Luke Campbell, who currently appears to be working a three-day week, demonstrates genuine engagement, providing clear priorities and full respect for East Riding’s voice, because this authority cannot afford to become an afterthought within a Combined Authority responsible for hundreds of millions of pounds.”

Redshaw wasn’t the only one expressing concerns over HEYCA at the East Riding meeting.

Also chipping in was Councillor David Nolan, another political veteran now sitting as an Independent after switching between the Lib Dems and Labour in recent years.

Nolan is a more aggressive operator and he also spoke on a minute from the same scrutiny committee, highlighting an 85 per cent funding cut facing East Riding Council’s business support service.

Previously, financial support to run the service came from European Structural Fund until Brexit happened and we left the EU. The ill-named UK Prosperity Fund was meant to replace it but Boris Johnson’s government made sure you had to read the small print to discover the UKPF was only ever meant to last for three years.

Now a new pot of government cash is in place but there’s less to spread around and it’s going to elected mayors rather than local councils with mayors expected to devolve some funding to local councils.

As Nolan put it: “The government are saying economic growth is a priority and yet East Riding has seen its business support service funding slashed by 85 per cent.

“Furthermore, delays in the Mayor passporting funding over to ERYC has made the problem worse. Staff don’t know whether they will have a job in six months and a round of voluntary redundancies is being triggered.”

Yes, that’s right. Council staff working to support the private business sector are potentially facing losing their jobs because funding is only in place for the next six months because of delays at HEYCA.

Long-standing critics of the devolution deal might say some local councillors in both the East Riding and Hull are only just starting realise what they voted for a couple of years ago - a seismic shift in responsibilities from local councils to a more democratically-detached body headed by just one individual.

However, even at the body in question, voices are now being raised over its current direction of travel.

HEYCA’s executive board is the main decision-making body with Mayor Campbell in the chair, and the leaders and deputy leaders of the two councils as members. Also present are two non-voting board members, the chairs of the authority’s business and skills boards. Finally, there’s also a seat for the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner, also as a non-voting board member.

Board meetings are normally held every two months and the most recent one in July lasted just 33 minutes, or at least the part which was held in public.

You might have thought that after 15 months, there would be more than just three main agenda items for the board to discuss during the public part of the proceedings but apparently not. Instead, we got tumbleweed.

Two regular fixed items - new announcements by the Mayor and questions submitted by the public - came and went without any new announcements or any questions about anything which might have happened in the previous two months.

Not exactly a great sign of the buzzing activity Andy Burnham probably expects to see from Metro Mayors

As for the three main items, a decision was deferred on one after councillors raised concerns over an accompanying report while another decision was also put on hold because councillors were unhappy that proposed changes to the authority’s constitution had only been set out verbally at the board meeting rather than in a formal written report.

The latter included details of an unsuccessful and increasingly drawn-out attempt to appoint an independent person to chair the authority’s governance and audit committee as required by HEYCA’s own constitution.

Apparently, over a dozen people have so far turned down the role after being informally approached.

Why such reluctance to join the good ship HEYCA?

“There’s not one answer. There’s a lot of responsibility in being the chair and that’s been an issue. It’s just a really hard skill set to find,” explained interim monitoring officer Tony Maione.

While neither of the deferred items involved anything particularly earth-shattering, the inability to get the administrative basics right in the decision-making process was eye-opening.

Just a reminder, we’re already 15 months into this. Like anything new, I’d factored in a few early teething problems as the authority bedded in but not at this stage in the game.

The one item that did get signed off was a report on HEYCA’s financial position covering the first full year since its inception.

Again, little of it was controversial but the report did feature something of a running theme as noticed later by Councillor Leo Hammond, who was present in his role as the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

He picked up on the proposal to substantially increase the allowance for the vacant independent chair’s role in an attempt to make it more financially attractive proposition.

He said: “I’m just concerned about the spend on the office and function of the combined authority compared to spend on public services because when we look at the financial report, there is considerable spend on the office but a considerable underspend on the stuff the office is actually meant to be doing.”

The underspends (budgets where earmarked money wasn’t actually spent) included the authority’s main investment fund and nearly all of the £1m set aside for grants from the Mayor’s much-hyped community fund.

Finally, there is one interesting thing that has happened at HEYCA over the last year which has so far gone under the radar as far as I’m aware.

When it was first launched, the authority’s website prominently featured its four core aims to boost the local economy - delivering a sustainable future, increasing productivity, promoting inclusivity and enhancing connectivity.

Under each heading was an accompanying paragraph of explanation. Three of the four priorities included specific commitments to promoting clean energy, transitioning to a net-zero economy and creating a low-carbon transport network.

Fifteen months on, the website now features four very differently worded priorities with four much more simplistic accompanying paragraphs.

The current quartet includes good jobs, better transport and digital connections, promoting fitness and health and ensuring an increased supply of affordable housing.

All very laudable but there’s no longer any mention of clean energy, net zero or low carbon.

Since his election, Campbell has attempted to offset his own and his party’s aversion to anything net zero by insisting he’s in favour of clean, renewable energy but not that keen on using net zero as a target for industry to aim for.

Now it seems HEYCA’s core priorities have been quietly changed to reflect his and Reform’s views rather than, say, other members of the board who endorsed the original priorities as part of the authority’s launch.

Maybe this policy switch could be added to the agenda of the next board meeting. After all, there doesn’t seem to be much else to discuss at the moment.