Minutes:
Hannah Berry, Head of Campaigns and Digital Communication, updated the Board on proposed activity to lobby for greater devolution as part of the LGAs Spending Review Campaign.
With the Spending Review as the LGA’s main priority, there needs to be some wider strands to the campaign to echo the main strategies and objectives. One of these strands is devolution, which has been signed off by group leaders. The LGA proposes to undertake a range of campaign activity to re-energise the devolution debate.
The main question posed to the Board was alongside outlining the benefits to devolution, whether or not to include the risks of not devolving these powers.
The following discussion took place with members:
In response to a query raised about how to message funding, HB explained that one of the key messages from the Spending Review will be about how to fund these devolved powers, and therefore will go hand in hand.
Ian Hughes, Head of Policy, explained that the LGA intend to look at the funding gap and transfer of powers that have gone to Combined Authorities as a starting point.
In response to the question posed to the Board, one member responded saying that the preferred approach was to focus on the benefits of devolution rather than focus on the risks of not devolving powers. However, we still need to balance this with the reality of the difficult decisions councils are having to make around the provision of existing services.
Decision:
Members of the Board support the objectives of the Spending Review Campaign at present
Action
Officers will draft a full Spending Review Campaign and discuss further detail at the next Lead Member’s meeting. Feedback from this meeting will be fed back to members digitally.