Agenda item

To receive any comments from the Chair of the Combined Authority’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair advised that the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had submitted comments for consideration at this meeting, following on from their committee meeting held on 7 October. The comments had been circulated in advance of the meeting and were available to view on the Combined Authority web site.

Cllr Stephen Clarke, the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee then presented the written comments, which had highlighted the following points:

Covid Recovery Plan and Climate Emergency Action Plan (agenda item 11):

Scrutiny members had been pleased to welcome Mayor Bowles to their meeting to discuss these items and hoped he would attend future meetings on a reasonably regular basis as they had found the engagement helpful.

In broad terms, the committee had welcomed both the Recovery Plan and the Climate Emergency Action Plan.  Specific comments were as follows:

Recovery Plan:

Members welcomed the breadth and ambition of the plan, and the specific detail of the actions to be taken forward, as developed through the Taskforce, with the full involvement of the region’s local authorities and the business and other communities.

Climate Emergency Action Plan:

Members broadly welcomed the Climate Emergency Action Plan, recognising the clear structure of the plan.  They particularly welcomed the headline ambition to achieve net zero carbon in the region by 2030, which was significantly ahead of the 2050 national target and acknowledged the work of officers and the engagement and partnership working that had taken place across the authorities in developing the action plan. 

Members, however, also wished to draw attention to the following issues that should be fully taken on board in taking actions forward:

* It would be important to ensure the development of a suite of SMART (Specific; Measurable; Attainable; Relevant; Timed) targets as an integral part of the action plan.  It was critical to define goals and establish clear milestones against which progress and success could be measured and demonstrated.

* There would need to be clarity about how taking forward these actions would be factored into / linked in with the evidence base that would inform the review of key strategies, plans and projects, e.g. the Local Industrial Strategy, the next Joint Local Transport Plan and future investment in sustainable transport.

* Given the twin ‘drivers’ of facilitating economic recovery and tackling the climate emergency, it would be essential to build on the region’s acknowledged strengths around innovation and technology by maximising investment opportunities (e.g. around the hydrogen economy and clean technologies) that will bring both economic and environmental benefit.

Investment Fund (agenda item 15):

Scrutiny members noted the latest report and the fact that £32.2m of headroom had been identified in the programme to 2022/23 as a result of the detailed review of scheme deliverability. They noted also that detailed proposals for the reallocation of funding from this headroom were to be presented in December and were supportive of the proposal that a significant part of this funding, approx. £20-£25m be used to create a Development Infrastructure Fund.

West of England Combined Authority and North Somerset:

It was scrutiny members’ strong view that it would be beneficial to the region for North Somerset Council to join the Combined Authority, so that the Combined Authority’s geography aligned with the West of England’s functional economic area.   They encouraged all Mayors and Leaders to do everything possible to bring this about in discussion with government so that these arrangements were in place in advance of the 2021 Combined Authority Mayoral election.