20171207 Things to note at WMCA Board
As it’s technically a ‘matter arising’ from the last meeting, I think we should start today’s summary by saying: CONGRATULATIONS COVENTRY!
This is a wonderful news story for the region, and the product of a lot of hard work from the city. It also means that — of the decisions taken in the private section of the agenda last month — that this is the one that will come to pass:
Consideration of a potential allocation of £4m over four years to support a total of £37.9m investment if Coventry was successful in being named UK City of Culture 2021, to be done alongside all the other requests for capital and revenue investment into the WMCA and in line with the current and future analysis of aggregate funding availability, would be included in the WMCA’s medium-term budgeting process.
I am also looking forward to getting what the WMCA Board vibe is around the recent announcement about “incorporating the role and power of the Police and Crime Commissioner into the mayoralty”, in time for the 2020 elections.
Mayoral WMCA Governance of West Midlands Fire Service — Governance Review and Scheme
You might remember this from September’s Board meeting — in essence, the roles and functions of the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority (WMFRA) for West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS), are to be transferred to the Mayoral West Midlands Combined Authority, subject to consultation and the ability to satisfy Government that “the making of the order is likely to improve the exercise of statutory functions in the area or areas to which the order relates”. At that meeting, the Board agreed that the document could be prepared, and now, here it is.
The report outlines the areas where improvements are likely to be realised:
- Public safety delivered through broad range of responses to emergency services;
- A workforce to support joined up services and reduce vulnerability;
- Continued improvement and transformation;
- Operational independence.
They seem to have clarified a few elements of concern since September — crucially, that the Mayoral Fire Advisory Committee will not be a decision-making body, but a review body (p43 of agenda pack). Furthermore, in this proposal, the Chief Fire Officer will remain the Head of Paid Service. If you want to see the new structure on a page, scroll to p58.
Four of the seven Constituent Councils have already completed the approvals process, and the remaining three — Coventry, Solihull, and Dudley — will have it on their agendas at Full Council in December. I observed the Cabinet meeting in Birmingham, and the main concern there is reflected in this report: essentially, that there should be no fewer than 15 members on the proposed Mayoral Fire Advisory Committee so as to enable a spread of representation from across the region (there are 27 currently). These concerns are likely to be integrated into the overall scheme for consultation by the WMCA Board.
The consultation will go public on January 8th, and will run for six weeks. The rest of the timetable looks like this:
If this all runs to plan, one of the consequences of this will be that the WMCA can finally borrow for reasons other than transport, as it will absorb the borrowing powers of the WMFA.
I wonder whether the PCC assimilation will have an impact on this process, or vice versa? David Jamieson has, it seems, taken up his legislative right to have a place on the new committee (at their invitation), but this will presumably cease in 2020. Collaboration between the ‘blue light services’ has been considered as part of the review, and already happens to a certain extent. Only time will tell.
West Midlands Growth Company — Business Plan
Time to approve a (slightly fluffy) business plan, lads (and the two ladies permitted to do such things). It has already been on a whimsical journey through the Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) Board, past the watchful eyes of the LEPs, and through to initial approval by the ‘A Members’ of the West Midlands Growth Company (WMGC).
For reference (and this is a little fiddly), the A Members are comprised of the WMCA and the seven constituent authorities, with the B Members currently being the six main universities of the region. There is also an overall Board, with 25 positions (the number is set by the A Members):
Company members (A&B) can only be public “contracting authorities” as this allows the company to comply with the Teckal exemptions as set out in Regulation 12 so it can be charged by the WMCA, Councils and Universities with delivering certain functions, therefore avoiding a formal procurement exercise. A separate trading subsidiary, wholly owned by the West Midlands Growth Company will handle any residual non-core and private sector contracts hence keeping the Growth Company within the requirement to ensure that no more than 20% of its turnover is provided to the private sector.
In a nutshell, this is the point of WMGC:
…the Growth Company will support the WMCA with delivering increases to the region’s GVA and more high quality jobs by bringing companies, investments and visitors to the region and by supporting indigenous companies to stay and grow.
They will do this across the following areas:
- Regional Marketing;
- Attracting Inward Investment;
- Attracting Capital Investment;
- Account Management;
- Promotion of the Visitor Economy;
- Business Support Coordination;
- Market Intelligence.
In order to do this, WMGC plans to grow its income to £10m by 2020:
The financial forecast shows that 40% of our income will come from Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the public sector and 60% will be made up from a mixture of public/private sector match funding for campaigns, events and additional contracts.
The SLAs with WMCA, the universities and Wolverhampton represent new business, valued at £1.329m in the first year — this is a notable investment, and shows something of the collaborative nature of both the WMCA and WMGC. There is acknowledgment that it cannot rely on shareholders alone, but it is fair to say that most of the detail here is based on business from those shareholders. See p106 for a current and potential ‘client map’, and p123 for a more detailed budget forecast.
The report is breezily optimistic about the “significant opportunities” associated with Brexit, for some reason.
This is not to downplay the strengths of the region, but goodness knows it will be difficult to connect those to investors if the Government persists with their current approach, and the report notes that uncertainty is delaying investment decisions. Yes, there are opportunities in China and India, but as this article notes, we would be approaching trade deal negotiations as the weaker negotiating partner. My fear is that we will end up doing much more of the other thing: selling land and property assets, with cumulative implications that we may not have fully thought through. Anyway — WMGC has appointed IBM Place Location to do a piece of research on a five year inward investment strategy, so we will see what that comes out with.
WMGC will spread its work beyond Birmingham to cover the entire ‘three-LEP geography’ via a “regional familiarisation” programme, which I think we can all agree sounds fun. “Where are we?” “This is Canley.” “Stupendous,” etc. It will employ a few more members of staff in order to achieve this.
The financial implications of the overall plan for the WMCA are straightforward enough:
On 3.2, it does say, further into the report, that up to £500,000 may be spent on these transitional matters. Goodness knows why that isn’t stated here. A summary of that transition can also be found further into the report (p99):
You can see a fuller version of this on p__. I refuse to repeat the tautology used in the report.
The Black Country Consortium is working with WMGC to establish the link between its work and the delivery of the SEP, which is probably quite important. The plan commits WMGC to considering all business decisions via the prism of SEP delivery, notably GVA uplift and jobs growth — see p90 and p95–96 for more details on this. There is no mention of ‘inclusive growth’, so perhaps it doesn’t see it as its job. Does anyone? Or do we just like saying it?
A few people from the WMCA Overview & Scrutiny Committee went to visit our friends on the London Assembly a few weeks ago, to watch their Budget and Performance Committee scrutinise the GLA budget. One of their questions relating to London and Partners (their WMGC equivalent) was, quite simply, are we assured that the investment we make in them is generating the foreign direct investment they say it is? I am not questioning having a body like WMGC — far from it — but we need to ask the same questions here. The experience elsewhere suggests that this sort of work can end up slipping away from the eyes of democratic oversight, and we should not let that happen here.
Delegation of Statement of Accounts Approval
More powers for the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee (ARAC) here — the Board is asked to approve an amendment to the constitution so that it can consider and approve the statutory Statement of Accounts from both WMCA and the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority Pension Fund. This is consistent with the Accounts and Audit Regulations.
Financial Monitoring 2017/18
So — the Mayor’s office as a whole seems to be back in line with the budget — overspending on staff has been compensated for by no spending on external advice, travel and subsistence and ‘Other’.
I am still keen that the size of the Mayor’s office should be revisited — my sense is still that there are too few people in it, and the human beings within are quite stressed. I’m all for making political hay out of an overspend, but goodness knows my preference is that we have enough people to do what needs to be done to make WMCA work.
The General Fund balance has crept up again — a “healthy” £2.9m, up from £2.6m last time.
Governance for Establishing Advanced Quality Bus Partnerships
Verily — we are in delegation season. Christmas spirit imbues us all. This time, the Board is being asked to delegate the creation of Advanced Quality Bus Partnership Schemes to the Transport Delivery Committee. These schemes enable the affected locations to ensure that only vehicles of a certain standard can, well, be buses, in that area. So, the most polluting buses are already stopped from running routes that go into the centre of Birmingham, but are free to run pretty much any vehicle they like on, say, the 11 route.
Midland Metro Penalty Fare
I am furious that we need to ask the Secretary of State for permission to amend penalty fares on the bloody Metro, and obviously delighted that we are seeking to bring an end to this ridiculous arrangement. Why on earth would central Government want that power? Does anyone from central Government live in Tipton? ARGH. Devolution will take longer to implement than Universal Credit, at this rate.
