‘It’s the start of a journey that can go a long way if we go along with it’, Devon County Council Leader John Hart told those present at the Council’s Cabinet Meeting on February 2.
South Hams District Council Leader Julian Brazil echoed his thoughts.
‘If this sets up the vehicle by which that new model of devolution works’, commented Brazil, ‘then as it says in the (meeting’s) papers, we’re going on a journey and this might well be the beginning of that journey. And it will evolve. It will change a lot. The funding and everything like that could change massively. And this might be a start.’
The journey’s destination is Devolution, and the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority (CCA) is apparently the vehicle to get us there.
But it remains a journey into the unknown. We have no idea what it will cost. And nobody knows what actually awaits us once we get there, a fact Cllr Brazil acknowledged: ‘the elephant in the room about all of this is that there’s almost certainly going to be a change of government and we don’t know what an incoming government’s vision of devolution might be’.
Yet it remains a journey we are about to take. And it seems we have to go along for the ride. A public consultation is currently underway. That consultation spells out six of the proposed benefits the new Authority will allegedly deliver. And in each instance we are merely asked whether or not we agree to those proposals and, if so, how strongly.
The Consultation claims those six proposals will make it possible to maximise the our economic potential, address our housing pressures, improve local transport, meet our net zero ambitions, deliver investment in Devon and Torbay, and support industries important to the region.
A seventh and final question asks how strongly we agree or disagree with the governance arrangements being proposed for the new Authority.
But it is noticeable that at no point are we being offered the opportunity to opt out.
Then once the Consultation concludes, and when the new Authority comes in to being, some £16 million in Government funding might be made available over the next two years to support the development of a small sites Green Homes investment programme, support business to invest in green business transition activity, support the development of green skills capacity building within the Further and Higher education sector, and enable the development of crucial coastal and marine energy infrastructure to allow for the transition to low carbon shipping.
That money, which will have to be split four ways and is equivalent to less than £17 for each of the 935,000 residents of Devon and Torbay, will only be forthcoming ‘subject to the development of a detailed business case’. In other words, the Government has to approve both how and on what it is to be spent.
And, given that is the case, we will effectively be back where we started.
Yet even if the Government gives approval to the plans, paragraph 131 of the proposed Devolution Deal makes it clear that ‘any issues of concern with the subsequent delivery of this deal will be escalated to ministers and leaders to resolve, in keeping with the letter and spirt of devolution’.
Or, to put it another way, if things aren’t going how ministers like they can simply take over, ‘in keeping with the letter and spirt of devolution’!
We’re also being told the creation of the CCA will have the benefit of enabling greater collaboration with Homes England and so ‘reduce the barriers to affordable housing delivery, regeneration and housing growth – with a particular focus on rural and coastal communities.
‘By combining skills and capacity,’ it is claimed, ‘Devon and Torbay CCA and Homes England will develop a shared development pipeline, underpinned by a clear action plan, and explore ways to support the delivery of that pipeline via current and future national housing programmes.’
Ostensibly all to the good. But not necessarily. The Deputy Leader of the Council’s Liberal Democrat group and the Leader of Teignbridge District Council Martin Wrigley cautioned his colleagues: ‘this could end up with less money from Homes England for building affordable homes in Devon if we’re not very careful.’
He explained: ‘We currently have conversations and work out how that is spent locally and it’s being done very differently in the districts to good effect in each place.’
And he continued: ‘We do a housing event in my district with all our local providers and we had a Homes England representative there who actually knows what were doing in the district, who is there working with us. Resetting that relationship is not a good thing. Resetting that relationship through one single body will put us back five years. It won’t take us forward.’
‘To my mind’, Leader of the Labour Group Cllr Carol Whitton told the meeting, ‘the word devolution as it has historically been defined is all about bringing decision-making closer to where people live so that they feel better represented, better involved, and that decision-making reflects their local concerns.’
So some might say taking decision-making on matters such as affordable housing further away from where people live does not sit comfortably with the concept of devolution.
‘Will people in Devon feel they are better represented through this new Authority than they are through existing arrangements?’, Cllr Whitton went on to ask.
Cllr Cllr Caroline Leaver, the leader of the Lib Dem group on the Council, clearly thought not. ‘It seems very much like a centralisation of power’, she said. ‘This is additional bureaucracy.’
And the cost of that bureaucracy will be paid for by the Council Tax payers of Devon and Torbay. The Government is promising a separate £1 million over three years to help with the set-up costs of the new Authority. But significantly no further funding of any description for any purpose is guaranteed after that date. And, given the state of the country’s finances, it is entirely possible none will be forthcoming.
At the sane time it seems unlikely the destination of the devolution journey that Cllr Brazil and others would have in mind should result in decisions directly affecting local residents, currently being taken by locally elected representatives, accountable to their communities, could instead end up the responsibility of others many miles away.
Consequently he is entirely right to wonder what an incoming government’s vision of devolution might be. One clue may have been provided by Sir Kier Starmer, who was quoted by The Guardian as saying ‘combined authorities would get more control over housing and planning, skills, energy and transport of the kind currently held by London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester’.
It’s therefore important to take note of the statement on page 5 of the Draft Proposal for the new Authority that was presented to councillors at their meeting on February 2, which read: ‘The devolution partners recognise that devolution is a journey, not a one-off event. This proposal is anticipated to be the first step in the process of further devolution. As institutions mature, they can gain greater responsibility and Devon and Torbay will be able to deepen its devolution arrangements over time, subject to Government agreement.’
Were that to happen, as Sir Kier Starmer suggests, decisions on issues such as planning will no longer be taken locally by our District Council, but instead many more miles away.
As Cllr Frank Biederman, Leader of the Independent Group, told his fellow councillors: ‘All I see is the creation of another level of government that will spiral out of control as more and more staff are brought in to run it and support it. My advice is let’s bin this quango and wait and see what the next government’s priorities are.’
The Society has since been informed that South Hams District Councillors will discuss the proposed Devon and Torbay CCA at their meeting on March 21. Before that date residents might wish to email their District Councillor and ask him or her to take Cllr Biederman’s advice and publicly call for this quango to be binned until after the next election.
The South Hams has previously found itself part of the Plymouth and South Devon Freeport, arguably without any proper democratic scrutiny. We should not allow the same mistake to be made again.
You can also respond to the Consultation by going to https://www.devontorbaydeal.org.uk. As well as agreeing or disagreeing with what’s being presented there’s also a field in which you can make your views known. But you only have March 24 to do so!
