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28
Sept
North Yorkshire mayor open to more powers over schools and health
David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, has said he wants more powers from Westminster to help drive the region’s economy.
In an interview with the Stray Ferret, Mr Skaith, who was elected Labour mayor in May 2024, said York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority wanted more flexibility over how and where it spends its money.
Currently, the mayor has powers over areas such as bus franchising, local transport strategy, housing and adult skills. He also oversees a mayoral investment fund worth £540 million over the next three decades.
However, the responsibilities are limited compared to those of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which oversees areas such as a joint health and social care budget.
Mr Skaith pointed to Greater Manchester as an example of how having a “broader say” in what goes on in the region helps the economy.
He said:
Devolution works when areas get more power, more control and more finance. But, also more flexibility over what that money can be spent on.
When I first started, for example, our transport money could not be spent on anything to do with rail. Whereas now, we are working with government to change that because there are quite a lot of rail projects that we would love to be able to support.
That’s something that Andy Burnham has already. If we get much more flexibility and much more control over what we could spend it on, we would be able to understand what our unique challenges are in York and North Yorkshire and target those.
As well as flexibility over transport funding, Mr Skaith points to adult skills funding as another area which the mayor and combined authority want more powers over.
David Skaith and Sir Keir Starmer after his mayoral election win.
Currently, the combined authority has power and funding to help equip adults aged 19 and over with the skills to progress into employment, apprenticeships or other learning.
However, Mr Skaith wants to see the age lowered to post-16 in order target more young people and help them into further education.
He said:
Having much more say and control over what skills would look like from post-16 would really help our local economy, because we can align our skills agenda with what our industries are saying.
The younger that we can start people on that journey for a shortage of engineers, for example, then we can keep them in the region which is our big challenge.
The issue over whether to give mayors more powers hit the headlines this week after Labour Together, a think-tank, published a report proposing to transfer significant responsibilities from Westminster to the region’s mayors.
The report, which has been endorsed by Steve Reed, the local government secretary, suggested granting significant powers over hospitals and schools in a new wave of devolution in England.
(From left) Oliver Coppard, mayor of South Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, mayor of West Yorkshire and David Skaith, mayor of York and North Yorkshire.
Decisions over funding in the health service are currently made by regional NHS bodies known as integrated care boards. The Labour Together report calls for mayors to be given more power over local health funding.
Mr Skaith told the Stray Ferret that he was open to having more responsibility over schools and health.
However, he added that the responsibilities, particularly over health, needed clarification.
He said:
It could be a really good opportunity. But the challenge with health in particular is how the borders and areas align.
Our fire and police borders align to York and North Yorkshire. That very much makes sense. But our NHS borders are much more York and the Humber. It would be understanding as the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire what would that look like if our borders were not just York and North Yorkshire.
Would there need to be new border alignments around health or would the collective of mayors for the whole of Yorkshire and Humber work collectively on health? But, it’s good that we are having these conversations.
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