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. 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 comments and highlighted the following points:

Joint Local Transport Plan 4 (JLTP):

a. Scrutiny members had established a transport sub-group which met to review the JLTP. The sub-group had produced a detailed statement which had been circulated. 

b. Scrutiny members had been informed of the legal advice obtained by the Combined Authority which had confirmed that JLTP4 complied with the Paris Agreement (following the Court of Appeal ruling on the Heathrow third runway). 

c. One of the issues identified by scrutiny members was that the Plan felt as though it had been written by a number of different people. The introductory preamble “setting the scene” section at the start of the document referred to a range of broad principles, many of which were carbon-aware and concerned with recognising the significance of climate change. However, these principles were sometimes not reflected fully in the subsequent detailed sections of the plan, in particular through the numerous major road building schemes that were proposed, including a new motorway junction.  Scrutiny members’ overriding view was that too many road schemes were included; new roads just attracted more cars and the inclusion of so many road schemes should be reviewed.  

d. Scrutiny members were unclear about the proposed working lifetime/timeline of the Plan.  It was understood from officers’ comments that the Plan was a “stopgap” and that the drafting of a new Plan (JLTP5) would begin almost immediately.  Members would like to see as much transparency and clarity as possible about how the future development of JLTP5 would be taken forward. Members had been advised by officers that there would be a need for schemes and major interventions included in JLTP4 to be kept under review (for example, to take account of government infrastructure announcements/plans) and would like clear information to be made available about the review process for JLTP4.

e. Scrutiny members had found it confusing in certain instances about where and how decisions would be taken on major schemes. Each prioritised scheme should have a published ‘decision tree’.  Scrutiny members would also like an assurance that they would be kept informed and engaged in commenting on schemes as they were developed.

f. It would also be critical to have clarity about how the evaluation of major schemes in terms of climate change impact was assessed and how the current proposed set of schemes was prioritised following the declaration of the Climate Emergency. Scrutiny members felt the list of major schemes should be re-prioritised in an open and clear way to take account of the declaration of the Climate Emergency by the Combined Authority.  The current priorities were determined before the Climate Emergency had been declared.

In summary, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would like the list of major schemes that were going forward to be prioritised to show clear delivery timelines and a ‘decision tree’ in each case, and for a clear assessment to be provided in each case against climate change criteria which took into account the Climate Emergency that the Combined Authority had declared.

The Chair thanked Cllr Clarke for presenting the scrutiny comments.

Cllr Romero then referred to previous discussions about whether the Combined Authority should establish a Climate Emergency Board or perhaps look to embed Climate Emergency expertise within scrutiny and sought Cllr Clarke’s views on this. In response, Cllr Clarke advised that, as discussed at their January meeting, scrutiny members had expressed the strong view that expertise should be developed and that a specific Combined Authority Climate Emergency Board should be considered. Scrutiny members’ understanding was that the Combined Authority’s Climate Emergency Action Plan was scheduled for the June committee cycle; members felt that as part of the action plan, each scheme brought forward should be measured for compliance against clear climate change criteria.