North of Tyne Devolution
Information on this page has come from official websites, Northumberland's devolution consultation event and the North of Tyne Devolution press office.
NOTE: Links are underlined but the text is black rather than blue.
Background
The 'Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009' introduced combined authorities to England outside Greater London.
The North East Combined Authority (NECA) comprising Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland was set up in 2014.
The 'Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016' introduced directly-elected mayors to combined local authorities in England and Wales to devolve housing, transport, planning and policing powers to them.
The Local Government Association describes devolution as one of the most fundamental changes to the way decisions are made for local areas and how public services are funded. See the LGA webpage What is devolution?
NECA were in discussions with Government about devolution but were unable to reach an agreement on the terms of the devolution deal and decided not to proceed. See the NECA webpage Devolution.
Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland are ‘minded to approve’ a devolution deal which would mean them leaving NECA and setting up a combined authority provisionally called North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA). See the North of Tyne Devolution website.
The Devolution Deal
The Government and Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland councils have agreed a ‘minded to approve’ devolution deal for the North of Tyne.
This summary of the new powers and funding that would be available to the North of Tyne through this deal is taken from the North of Tyne ‘minded-to’ Devolution Deal:
A new, directly elected North of Tyne Mayor, acting as Chair to a new North of Tyne Combined Authority.
Control of a £20 million per year allocation of revenue funding, over 30 years, to be invested by the North of Tyne Combined Authority to drive growth and take forward its economic priorities.
Establishment of an Inclusive Growth Board, with Government participation, to better integrate skills and employment programmes across the area, including a North of Tyne Education Improvement Challenge.
Devolution of the Adult Education Budget for the area to allow North of Tyne to shape local skills provision to respond to local needs.
Opportunity to secure funding for pilots to help North of Tyne residents with particular barriers to employment into work.
Establishment of a Housing and Land Board, with powers to the Combined Authority to acquire and dispose of land, and mayoral powers to take forward compulsory purchases and establish Mayoral Development Corporations, as a foundation for North of Tyne's housing and regeneration ambitions.
Driving improvements to rural growth and productivity, and becoming a Rural Business Scale up Champion for England.
More effective joint working with the Department for International Trade to boost trade and investment in the area.
Collaborative working with Government to support North of Tyne in taking forward its considerable ambitions around digital capability and infrastructure, and low-carbon energy.
A statutory Joint Committee to exercise transport functions jointly on behalf of the North of Tyne and North East Combined Authorities.
Editors notes:
1. The Mayoral Combined Authority is expected to be established in mid 2018 with the first election of the Mayor in May 2019.
The mayor will have the power to set a precept on local council tax bills to help pay for the Mayor’s work.
At Northumberland's consultation event the County Council Leader, Peter Jackson, said that there will not be a huge bureaucracy.
He said the three authorities would redirect their contributions currently going to NECA to NTCA with the balance of the cost being taken from the £20m.
The three authorities currently contribute £128k pa to the NECA.
The NTCA press office has suggested that we reference Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority which has annual running costs of approximately £1m.
That would mean no extra cost would be passed to the rate payers but the £20m would be reduced by £872k to about £19.1m.
2. The combined net revenue budgets of the NTCA authorities is £645m for 2017/18 so, at the moment, the £19.1m represents 3% extra funding.
3. NTCA expect 10,000 new and better jobs to be created through the deal and that 25% of these jobs will be taken up by people living in County Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland. These are in addition to jobs created by the three local authorities.
4. The Adult Education Budget is currently £23m pa.
6. The Compulsory purchase powers are subject to the agreement of the NTCA member where the relevant land is located, and to the consent of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
10. The NECA currently exercise transport functions for the region and NTCA will work with the reduced NECA.
NCC's View
For NCC's view of the proposals see the documents in section 9 of the December 12th Cabinet meeting agenda.
Item 9.7 is the Governance Overview which details the decision-making arrangements.
See also the NCC news items Leader welcomes devolution deal and Next stage of North of Tyne devolution begins
Other Combined Authorities
As at January 2018 there were six combined authorities with directly elected mayors:
Combined Authority Population 000s Annual Government Funding
West Midlands 2,834 £ 36.5 million
Greater Manchester 2,756 £ 30 million
Liverpool 1,525 £ 30 million
West of England 909 £ 30 million
P'borough and Cambridgeshire 841 £ 20 million
Tees Valley 668 £ 15 million
The six combined authority areas account for a total population of 9.5 million people, almost 20% of the population in England.
By comparison, the North of Tyne area has a population of 815,000 and will get £ 20 million pa funding.
There are two combined authorities without directly elected mayors - the North East Combined Authority and West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
Consultation
The first step to implement these proposals is to seek views on them through a public consultation which runs till Monday February 5th 2018.
Full details of the proposals and the online consultation are at NorthOfTyneDevolution.com
Copies should be available at all Northumberland's libraries and customer service centres (full list here) but Morpeth were out of stock as of January 16th.
The North of Tyne office have given us some copies which are now available in Longhorsley Village Hall.
Please do not use these paper copies if you have internet access.
If you complete a survey it needs to be posted at the latest 1st class on Saturday February 3rd so it arrives by Monday February 5th.
The survey asks four questions:
Do you agree or disagree with our proposals to....
1. change the way the councils in the North East work together in order for the devolution deal for the North of Tyne to be implemented?
2. help improve the quality and availability of housing and support infrastructure in the North ot Tyne?
3. help improve educational attainment and increase the number of residents moving in to work?
4. to maintain the current joint work on transport across the North East?
Result of Consultation
The Cabinets of Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland councils reviewed the response to the consultation and agreed to submit a detailed report on the feedback to Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid.
The report said there was strong support from local people, businesses and voluntary organisations for the opportunities offered by the deal.
The report said that over 1,000 individual responses were received - the North of Tyne area has an electorate of over half a million people.
(The overall electorate is 572,229, made up of 241,798 in Northumberland, 176,699 in Newcastle and 153,732 in North Tyneside.)
See the North of Tyne article Consultation shows strong support for North of Tyne devolution deal
Parliamentary Approval
The North of Tyne Combined Authority was formally approved and brought into law by Parliament on November 1st 2018.
The inaugural meeting of the cabinet for the new combined authority will take place at Morpeth Town Hall on November 8th.
Vision and Early Priorities
At it's first cabinet meeting on November 8th the North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA) approved a vision document, Home of Ambition
Four projects were invited to further develop their plans and apply for business case development funding:
Local full fibre network proposal
North Shields town centre redevelopment / fish quay
Energy Central Learning Hub, Blyth: skills training for the offshore / energy sector
A targeted employment service for areas of high unemployment in Newcastle
More details in the NTCA news item North of Tyne leaders set out their vision and pledge to make an impact quickly at first meeting
North Tyneside’s Elected Mayor, Norma Redfearn CBE, has been appointed as interim mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
More details in the NTCA news item Norma Redfearn appointed North of Tyne’s interim Mayor
Leaders from the three councils have agreed to a five-year plan that includes £33m to boost the growth of key sectors such as digital and new technologies and £8.4m for culture and tourism.
See the Chronicle Live article North of Tyne leaders on how to spend their first £100m - one week before new mayor is elected
Election of Mayor
The election will take place on Thursday May 2nd 2019.
The candidates are, in alphabetical order:
John Appleby, Liberal Democrats
Jamie Driscoll, Labour
Charlie Hoult, Conservatives
Hugh Jackson, UKIP
John McCabe, Independent
The leaflet Your guide to the election, the candidates and how to vote should have been delivered to every house.
Full details at North of Tyne Combined Authority Mayoral Election
The new mayor will have a salary of £65,000 pa - see the Morpeth Herald article New North of Tyne mayor to pocket £65,000 salary
Election Result
About 185,000 people voted - that's a turnout of 32%.
There were about 2,000 spoiled ballot papers.
With no candidate achieving 50% of the 1st choice votes cast the top two candidates went through to the second round.
The 2nd choice candidates of the people who voted for the other three candidates were then reviewed.
If these voters selected one of the top two candidates as their second choice these votes were added to 1st choice votes.
At the end of this process Jamie Driscoll, Labour was elected Mayor.
1st 2nd Total
John Appleby, Liberal Democrats 23,768 13%
Jamie Driscoll, Labour 62,034 34% 14,828 76,862 42%
Charlie Hoult, Conservatives 45,494 25% 14,595 60,089 33%
Hugh Jackson, UKIP 20,131 11%
John McCabe, Independent 31,507 17%