Agenda item

A report on the proposed methods of undertaking joint scrutiny of the Local Enterprise Partnership with Swindon Borough Council for the Committee to consider and agree the preferred method.

A Local Enterprise Partnership is a partnership between relevant local authorities and businesses from the local area to prioritise investments and facilitate economic development, based on a clear strategic vision to deliver on the priorities of the locality. It is designed to bring together business and civic leaders to set the strategy and take decisions for their area.

LEPs were created in 2011 and as a new organisation, the governance arrangements of the Swindon and Wiltshire LEP have been developing over time. To best reflect local circumstances, it has been recognised that there is a need to introduce a scrutiny mechanism for holding the LEP, and in particular its Strategic Economic Plan, to public account.

Discussions have now taken place at officer level between Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire Council on the potential practical arrangements for the joint scrutiny of the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership. A report from the Scrutiny Manager on the options for that joint scrutiny was presented, for an initial meeting in June 2014.

It was noted that the development of the proposed scrutiny of the LEP had been the subject of extensive liaison between Swindon Borough Council, Wiltshire Council and the LEP, and that there was not a statutory requirement for the LEP to submit to the formal Local Authority scrutiny arrangements, and that the LEP had no experience of working alongside elected members in such a fashion, requiring additional development work prior to setting up scrutiny requirements.

The Committee discussed the options for any scrutiny structure of the LEP, including leaving each Authority to use their own arrangements, a formal Joint Committee of the two authorities, or an informal Joint Task Group with fixed membership from both councils, with the latter being the recommendation of the report.

For a Task Group, there was a debate as to whether like Joint Committees such a group should contain more Wiltshire Councillors than Swindon Councillors to reflect the proportionate populations, or whether for the initial group tasked with producing recommendations for how the LEP would be scrutinized in the future, equal membership was appropriate.

It was also raised that a clear timetable and terms of reference would be needed for any task group, and the involvement of the LEP at the initial stage of formulating a future scrutiny system to be adopted was discussed.

There was debate about how long the pilot Task Group option, if agreed should last, with members keen to move the process along but conscious of the need for both council’s to further familiarize themselves with the LEP and its processes, as well as the impact of Swindon Borough Council’s May 2014 elections on setting up the proposed Task Group.

It was also stated that any scrutiny arrangements should be as robust as possible.

At the conclusion of debate, it was,

Resolved:

To delegate to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman to appoint four non-executive members to an informal joint Task Group with fixed membership with equal numbers from both Councils which is accountable to the relevant Overview and Scrutiny parent committee for an initial 12 month period with the opportunity to review the arrangements and formalise it as necessary, subject to the agreement of both Councils.