Agenda item

Councillor Cowling, the Leader of the Council, presented the following statement:

 

"I attended the Local Government Conference last week- where Leaders spent most of the time discussing devolution!   The general consensus among Leaders is that any bid for a Combined Authority for our district should be based on an area that would include North Yorkshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, Hambleton, Craven, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Selby, East Riding, Hull, York and Leeds city region.  You may have heard that Leeds have put in a bid for a combined authority that includes York, Harrogate, Craven and Selby. I understand that under the present rules, the North Yorkshire district councils cannot be split up. I also understand that authorities in a combined authority have to have adjoining boundaries – so that doesn’t bode well for the Leeds City Region bid.   Officers will work on the "asks" for our bid and then Leaders will bring the detail to their members for support - or not! Further consultation will be undertaken.

 

Greg Clark was very clear that devolution is what it says on the box - power devolved down from the government – not another tier of local government.  He was also very clear about the value of the work that district councils do and that no one should be hoping that devolution means unitaries by the back door."

 

Just a few snippets from the budget yesterday:

 

·        Compulsory new National Living Wage of £9 an hour by 2020 - starts at £7.20 next April

 

·        Tax free-personal allowance rising to £11,000 in 2016 - higher rate threshold rising to £43,000

 

·        Three million more apprentices with new scheme

 

·        No increase in main rates of income tax, NI or VAT

 

·        Corporation tax rate – will fall by 2% to 18% by 2020

 

 

The following questions were received on the Leader’s Statement:

 

1.            From Councillor Ives

 

"The Council Leader will be aware that there were discussions about potentially having a combined authority for all of Yorkshire, which I believe are now dead, judging by what I have read in the papers. Does the Council Leader support movements to create a joint authority for all of Yorkshire?"

 

 

The Leader replied:

"It's very difficult for me to answer that question Luke, I haven't taken a stance on it because I believe that any combined authority has got to be the will of the various councils that belong to it. My preference would have been for a combined authority for the whole of Yorkshire and then I would have liked to see it split into perhaps 3 further tiers of combined authority below the Mother Body, if you like. At the moment as far as I can make out South Yorkshire is very determined on their own combined authority and not really looking to join with anyone else. They feel that they're strong enough and big enough on their own to be able to put in a successful bid by themselves. I'm very open to persuasion about what will be the best - I don't have a firm view on it yet. It will be for this Council to decide what it supports".

 

 

Councillor Ives then asked the following supplementary question:

"We all know that combined authorities is a way of working together on strategic issues but may I ask the Council Leader what discussions we are having with other neighbouring authorities in terms of partnership working so we can make efficiencies and minimise the potential cuts to our tax payers?"

 

 

The Leader then replied:

"It's a very interesting time for the start of partnership working. Whereas in the past we've seen a great deal of reluctance to work in partnership because many of our authorities in North Yorkshire are quite wealthy and they feel they don't need to work with other people. I see a growing will to be wanting to work with other authorities and I think we're at a really exciting time. I think one of the main things that we shall work on together, which will be really successful and I hope will save us a lot of money, will be a waste partnership and if we can set up a successful model through the waste partnership, draw in other people, I think success creates success and the more successful we are in building partnerships, then others will follow on. As I said, I do think it's a really exciting time for local government."

 

2.         Councillor Paul Andrews submitted the following question:

 

"We're all aware that authorities like Ryedale have their affinities with other authorities, in the sense that we are a sparsely populated authority, we have small market towns and vast amounts of countryside and there is always a danger, therefore, that if an authority like Ryedale becomes part of another authority, the rural interest could simply be swallowed up and engulfed and all the money could go to the cities as it always does anyway but even more money and less representation. Does she recognise this danger and will she ensure  that the interests of the rural areas of the greater Yorkshire ward, or whatever it's going to be called, will be taken into account and given full representation  so that our interests are not outweighed or outbalanced by the urban interests?"

 

The Leader replied:

"Well it's rather interesting Cllr Andrews that you've asked exactly the question that I asked the group of Leaders when we met.  I got quite a slap down from what I would call the urban areas because they reminded me very sharply that they have some very rural areas in their counties. I believe that the group of authorities that we're looking at, at the moment would be mainly very rural and I think that would give us a lot of strength and the ability to protect ourselves from being swamped by the urban areas. Your concerns were exactly what were my concerns and I got an answer from them. We're never going to have the numbers that they have but I think a lot of the things that we need, such as infrastructure, help some of the cities such as York as well. So what benefits them, benefits us as well".

 

Councillor Andrews then asked the following supplementary question:

"Bearing in mind that Leeds has got such a huge population and that all the money goes into the conurbations as it is, do you think that a process of having a combined authority including Leeds is going to be to the benefit of a rural area such as this, or is it going to be to the disadvantage?"

 

The Leader Replied

"I believe that it will be a benefit to a rural area like this because I think the government are looking for strength in the combined authority, and unity, and the thing that we can ask for need to be run throughout the area - it needs to be a big enough area to be able to administer those things that we want devolving down from government; the money that we want devolving down from government to spend on infrastructure, perhaps health, perhaps the Police, things like that - it needs to be a big enough area. Yes I do believe that it will strengthen our ask."

 

3.         Councillor Shields submitted the following question:

 

"Looking at the list that.... in your proposed ....with these, worries me considerably. North Yorkshire is the biggest county as we know in England for a start, it is totally rural. If we included also East Riding which in their case - part of which has been subsumed into North Yorkshire, Hull and York seems to me would be quite large enough without having Leeds on top. I'm perfectly sure that once there is money around, that it is going to start off in the urban areas, even though I know they do have rural areas but there are a huge, vast majority of people in the city and it worries me considerably that people in far parts of Ryedale and further in North Yorkshire should actually come under an urban area like Leeds.  I hope it doesn't happen. There's a lot to go forward yet but that is my concern actually  and hopefully when you go to your Leaders meetings, you will be expressing concerns that we have here  on that particular subject."

 

The Leader Replied:

"Yes I definitely will be expressing those concerns and like many more of the districts in North Yorkshire, we're all very rural and we all have the same concerns. It would have to be a structure and a voting systems that we felt  we could get our share of what we needed. I don't think things could be any worse that they are. One of my main beefs is that the rural areas in particularly the north of England have no parity with other areas of the country. We certainly don't get as much per head spent on us as the urban areas, we don't get as much per head spent on us as they do in the south of England. So I think there's a big piece of work to be done on parity to begin with and then there would have to be parity in any combined authority as well."

 

4.         Councillor Clark submitted the following question:

"I just wondered if you could give us the criteria out of the very complex budget yesterday, how you picked out the 5 points you have picked out of there yet you don't mention the increase in vehicle duty and so on, which was given to those of the vote blue go green approach of reducing carbon emissions and they've had a massive increase. I just wondered what basis you used for picking out these that you've got here?"

 

The Leader Replied:

"The basis I used was items that I thought supported particularly the stance that this Council has taken in Ryedale and that I felt supported the work that we were doing here. I thought I made that clear when I mentioned them."

 

Councillor Clark asked the following supplementary question:

"That's fascinating that you actually think that a change in policy on climate change, a charging for people in Ryedale who were intending to buy low carbon vehicles to be now having to pay £140  - I thought we had a low carbon policy for this Council and I thought  - I would have said that absolutely opposes what this Council says its trying to do but maybe not. Maybe vote blue go green didn't really mean much."

 

The Leader Replied:

"I've already said twice now that I tried to pick a few items that I felt supported the economy in Ryedale. I could have gone through the whole budget line by line if you like but I think we'd have been here until midnight."

 

5.         Councillor Burr submitted the following question:

"I'd just like to ask the Leader about a recent event that was held here and would the Leader agree that the recent skills summit was a huge success and that the conclusion of the meeting was now to focus on all business  in Ryedale for the wider economic success? Could you maybe give me some assurance that all businesses other than engineering would now be the prime focus for the future of this Council? To follow the wishes of the many people  that attended that meeting from all businesses, all sectors and the local schools.  They all attended that meeting and that was the general conclusion - they said you'd made a fantastic job over the last 2 years of supporting engineering but now they wanted it to be rolled out to probably tourism, to other industries, entrepreneurial skills because basically that's what Ryedale is  - it's built up of small businesses. "

 

The Leader Replied:

"You're absolutely right and it was very remiss of me not to mention the very successful skills summit that was held here. It was a great event with lots of employers here and it was really interesting that they thought that Ryedale was doing really well on this issue and that they did want it opening out. Thank you for reminding me about that, absolutely we do need to look towards all businesses."

 

6.         Councillor Thornton submitted the following question:

"I wonder if you could help me to better understand how, as this Council has a green energy policy, how we can get round the problem of reducing support for renewable energy in the budget? The whole world is heading in the opposite direction led by the United Nations and by stars such as the Dalai Lama, the Pope and our very own David Attenborough encouraging us to increase our renewable energy supply and yet this reduction in support for renewable energy seems to be a rather curious move."

 

The Leader replied:

"I can't say that I know an awful lot about this but I do know that the government has to save money and that a lot of reports that I've read recently are saying that we aren't getting the return on some of the investments that we're making. There is, I believe, a movement towards different forms of  renewable energy and actually this Council does do a lot of work on renewable energy. At the moment we've got a scheme whereby all householders in Ryedale can have photovoltaic panels fitted to their roofs. As a Council we do a lot of work. Government set the policies on what money they've got and where they're going at the moment."

 

Councillor Thornton asked the following supplementary question:

"If the government has decided to save money it must cut the support of renewable energy industry, could you explain how we can also explain the increase in the threshold of inheritance tax for house - it's now gone up to £1 million ?"

 

The Leader replied:

"I don't know what we want me to explain - the reason I understand is so that lots of ordinary people who live in the south of England, not the north of England - do own houses that are worth more than £1 million."

 

7.         Councillor Burr submitted the following question:

"I attend all the safeguarding meetings and Cllr Duncan is the safeguarding officer and I'm really passionate about safeguarding. I would like to request if Members could have more training on certain issues around safeguarding, especially around legal highs etc, which is coming over from Scarborough area to Ryedale. I think that there are a lot of other issues around safeguarding, around children’s issues that us as Councillors need to be aware of because we are making massive decisions and if we understood more about everything I think it would help us very much. I wonder if I put that forward, if you would be supportive of that because I think it's a huge area that we sometimes - because we're maybe not in the scene where it's happening legal highs etc - we maybe don't know enough about it. I would just like to maybe bring it to you, could we broaden that out please?"

 

The Leader replied:

"Yes I'd be absolutely supportive of that. I did attend a safeguarding training session that we did here and it was absolutely fascinating and we learnt lots of things I thought from that session that you just didn't realise and I think it would be a really good idea to repeat that and perhaps add to it. "

 

8.         Councillor Goodrick submitted the following question:

"I'd like to ask the Leader if it would be possible to ask officers to prepare a very brief report on the efficiencies of paper copies of the agendas against iPads? Perhaps we should be doing a little bit more in the Council to be green?"

 

The Leader replied:

"I think we're getting a little off piste here but I will answer your question. I have already asked about that and it is costing this Council in the region of £5000 per year for those Councillors who elect not to have iPads - let alone the trees that have to be cut down to do it - but if you would like a report, I will request that."

 

9.         Councillor Duncan submitted the following question:

"With regard to devolution that we were talking about earlier - does the Leader have any idea of the timescale going forward of potentially when we could have something brought before us to make a decision. or what discussion she's going to be having in the future with regards to devolution?"

 

The Leader Replied:

"I can't put a timetable on it at all. It's fairly fast moving. There's stuff coming through nearly every day. Carl Les and the Chief Executive at North Yorkshire County Council are collating information at the moment, so just as soon as possible I will put stuff in front of you."