Consultation starts on Liverpool Combined Authority
The establishment of a combined authority with the power to "accelerate economic growth" has been recommended by the Liverpool City Region Cabinet.
The combined authority would take the strategic lead on "economic development, transport and employment and skills in the city region to support jobs and growth" and enable Liverpool to better compete with other regions with similar systems in place, including Manchester.
The proposal has backed been by the six local authorities within the Liverpool City Region, as well as the Local Enterprise Partnership and Merseytravel, following a governance review.
It will now be the subject of a public consultation exercise running until Friday 6 September.
A spokesman said the combined authority would not be a "super council".
"It is instead about formalising the existing positive informal arrangements and being able to draw-down powers and resources from Central Government for local use.
"It would provide clear leadership and greater transparency, while creating a legal entity which would be in a position to attract funding and devolved powers from Government.
"Many other areas across the country are also pursuing changes to their governance arrangements and this recommendation would enable the Liverpool City Region to compete with them."
Two documents have been produced which will be available to download from the Local Authority and Merseytravel websites.
These are:
- A Governance Review, which looks at how functions are organised at the moment, reviews the options for change and recommends that a Combined Authority is consulted upon
- A draft scheme, which sets out the possible functions of a Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
Stakeholders are invited to send their feedback to lcr.governance@knowsley.gov.uk.
Following the consultation period, a final recommendation will come back to individual cabinet and council meetings in September, and if agreed by all city region councils, a formal submission will be made to Government on Monday 30 September.
Information on the review of strategic governance can be found at www.knowsley.gov.uk.
Isit too much to ask for one chief executive, director of regen etc for the whole area, saving huge money for important things like schools, social services etc? Or will it be another case of shuffling deck chairs and turkeys voting for Christmas?
By John brown
Hear, Hear John Brown! How much extra will this take out of local services budgets, put into the pockets of the councillors and their chums. Somebody needs to come up with some sort of metric whereby we can measure the net benefit that each one of these positions "adds" to Liverpool and its residents. Those that do not contribute positively should be sacked. The metric should measure financial and social benefit into an overall annual score.
By Mr Baggins