People across the Harrogate district will be asked from today for their views on a historic £540 million devolution deal for North Yorkshire.

In August, county council leaders agreed the long-awaited deal with ministers to devolve more powers, including an elected mayor, to North Yorkshire and York.

The deal will see £18 million year worth of funding devolved to the county over 30 years.

Now, as part of the process to bring more powers to North Yorkshire, the public, businesses and charity organisations will be asked for their thoughts on the deal.

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, said: 

“We really need the public to come forward and give us their views on what is important to them and how devolution can benefit communities and businesses across York and North Yorkshire.

“The chance to secure these decision-making powers and millions of pounds in funding from the government is set to prove a life-changing opportunity for more than 800,000 people who live and work in York and North Yorkshire.

“Devolution will give local leaders the chance to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing people in York and North Yorkshire – whether that be providing more affordable housing, improving skills and education for better job opportunities, boosting transport infrastructure or tackling the climate crisis.”

Pictured: Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council, Greg Clark MP and Cllr Keith Aspden, leader of City of York Council sign the document.

Meanwhile, Helen Simpson, chair of the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said: 

“This is a historic moment for York and North Yorkshire and creates the opportunity to deliver long-term investment to support business growth.

“I’d like to invite business leaders across the region to contribute to this consultation.”

Consultation on the deal will run until Friday, December 16. People can have their say at the York and North Yorkshire Devolution website here.

What is in the deal?

As part of the devolution deal, a mayoral combined authority would be formed with a directly-elected mayor by May 2024.

It would mirror similar arrangements in the Tees Valley, where Conservative mayor Ben Houchen oversees the combined authority.

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While the planned North Yorkshire deal brings £540 million worth of investment funding, it is lower than the original £750 million requested by local leaders.

However, more power over skills and transport will be devolved.

It will see whoever is elected mayor and the new combined authority have control over the adult education budget and the ability to draw up its own transport strategy.

Control over bus franchising has also been granted to the county and the power to set up Mayoral Development Corporations, which have the power to buy land for housing or employment to regenerate a defined area.

Much of the deal echoes what was given to Tees Valley in 2015, where mayor Houchen has since exercised his economic development powers to buy Teesside International Airport and Redcar Steelworks.

Council bosses in North Yorkshire are facing calls to explain why a new council tax system will cost taxpayers millions of pounds a year more to run than the current system.

North Yorkshire County Council has revealed the cost of administering the unitary authority’s council tax scheme is expected to be £37m, £2.4m more than the current structure run by North Yorkshire’s district and borough councils.

A cross-party group of councillors has proposed unifying council tax bills across the seven districts over the next two financial years as some areas are paying higher rates than others.

Yesterday the Stray Ferret reported on how the Harrogate has the highest council tax in North Yorkshire.

The move would mean Harrogate’s average bills for a band D property would fall by £23.47 during each of the two years on a current bill of £1,723.27 whilst other areas might see a rise.

The proposed increases and cuts in council tax charges do not include what increases the new unitary authority, police and fire services and parish councils may levy from April 1.

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The county council’s executive member for finance, Councillor Gareth Dadd said the authority was acutely aware of the financial pressures which everyone is under with rising inflation and the cost of energy and food soaring.

He said:

“A great deal of work has gone into the proposed scheme to harmonise council tax bills across all seven districts, and we believe that the plan that has been drawn up to introduce the changes over the two years represents the fairest way forward for everyone involved.”

As part of the proposals, the executive committee will consider providing up to 100 per cent reductions on council tax bills for households on the lowest incomes.

However, opposition politicians said the rising cost of administering the new council tax system raised a red flag, particularly after as the county council had estimated savings brought about by creating abolishing the district and county councils and establishing a unitary authority should reach £252m over its first five years.

Councillor Andy Brown, the authority’s Green Party group coordinator said:

“We were assured that combining into one council would be simple and would reduce costs. We are already seeing how complicated it is and how hard it is to achieve the cost savings.”

Leader of the council’s Independent group, Councillor Stuart Parsons added:

“Big is supposed to be better. One is supposed to be cheaper than eight and this is an area where one is certainly not cheaper. How many other areas will there be.

“This is against all the logic of the massive savings that they claim would result from unification. What other extra costs are envisaged as a result of local government reorganisation and what savings are envisaged to come up with the magnificent £50m a year they have claimed would be found.”

Cllr Parsons said it would take many years for the new authority to iron out inequalities between services in the seven boroughs.

He added:

“I would like a full explanation of how the council has come to this £2.4m figure and how they are going to make it cost neutral. Eventually they should be able to make savings on staff as they establish a single team, but it’s going to take a long, long time.”

The leader of Harrogate Borough Council has suggested a ballot could decide whether to create a Harrogate town council.after next year’s shake-up of local government.

Harrogate Borough Council will be abolished on April 1 next year after 49 years of existence.

Its demise is part of the biggest change in local government since 1974, which will see the abolition of all seven district councils in the county, along with North Yorkshire County Council, and the creation of a single new super council.

The move could lead to the creation of a Harrogate town council to manage local assets such as the Stray and Harrogate Convention Centre.

Alternatively, the new super council — which will almost certainly be called North Yorkshire Council — could decide to handle everything itself.

Rudding Park

Richard Cooper told Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce‘s monthly meeting at Rudding Park last night:

“Some people think there should be a ballot on whether to have a town council. That’s something that happens quite a lot.”

But he said the final decision on whether to hold a ballot would be up to the new North Yorkshire Council.

Could Harrogate be home to the new super council?

Cllr Cooper, a Conservative who besides leading the borough council is also a county councillor, also floated the possibility of Harrogate being chosen as the location for North Yorkshire Council. He said:

“It’s still not decided where the new council will be and it could be Harrogate. It would certainly have the best office facilities in North Yorkshire.”

Northallerton, where North Yorkshire County Council is based, is the firm favourite to be chosen as the new location. But Cllr Cooper said whatever the outcome, Harrogate was likely to remain a “significant hub” in the new set-up because there would still be a need for council staff, offices and depots in the town.

Harrogate Borough Council offices at Knapping Mount.

With vesting day — the day when North Yorkshire Council comes into existence — just 444 days away, Cllr Cooper used his speech at last night’s meeting to urge Harrogate district voluntary organisations, some of which rely heavily on Harrogate Borough Council funding, to start networking with North Yorkshire County Council. He said:

“One of the key things voluntary organisations must do over the next year is build relationships.”

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He said Harrogate Borough Council had generously funded many local not-for-profit organisations, such as Harrogate Homeless Project, and he hoped the new council would continue this.

Asked whether he would be a contender for mayor of the combined authority for North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council under the new structure, Cllr Cooper reiterated that he planned to leave politics next year.

He said his political career was “in decline down to zero” rather than “on the launchpad”, adding:

“After getting into it 22 years ago, snd rather by accident, I think it’s time for other people to have a go.”

Staff ‘worried’

Wallace Sampson, chief executive of Harrogate Borough Council, told the meeting staff were ‘concerned and worried about what will happen” after they transfer to North Yorkshire Council.

He said all staff, except himself, whose role will no longer exist, would transfer to the new authority under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment). But there were no guarantees beyond then. Mr Sampson said:

“I can give assurances that on day one they will have a role. I can’t say beyond that.”

Nevertheless he said council leaders had set the tone by adopting a “pragmatic” approach to the changes and a “non-adversarial” approach to the new regime.

He added “staff had responded well to that” and were engaged in 16 workstreams related to the handover of power as well as their day-to-day duties.

Proud of Tour de France

Mr Sampson said despite all the changes, devolution was a “prize worth achieving” because the new mayor would have beefed-up powers and there would be economies of scale savings for taxpayers by the reduction in the number of senior managers and back office staff.

Asked what had been his greatest achievement, Mr Sampson said one of the things he was most proud of was leading the council through a decade of severe funding cuts from national government “without a significant impact on services”.

He also cited the council’s part in bringing the Tour de France to Harrogate in 2014. Mr Sampson said:

“I’m proud of the joy it brought to the district. It’s lasting legacy was that it put Harrogate on the map and created pride in what Harrogate could do on the national stage.”

Strayside Sunday is our monthly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

August 1^st is Yorkshire Day, the day we hang out the white rose flags, revel in the natural and sometimes bleak beauty of our great county, celebrate our heroes from Harold Wilson to Alan Bennett, from Betty Boothroyd to Dame Janet Baker, from David Hockney to Emily Bronte and rebel against the cheap and cliched stereotypes of flat caps, whippets and black pudding.

In fact, Yorkshire Day has its roots in two historic events; the first being the Battle of Minden in Prussia in 1759, when the King’s Own (as opposed to God’s own, one presumes) Yorkshire Light Infantry formed the larger part of an Anglo-German force that, under the command of Field Marshall Ferdinand of Brunswick, sent packing the French forces of the Marquis de Contades.  In celebration and to this day, a white rose adorns the Light Infantry’s headdress.  Quite right too.  Another great Yorkshireman, William Wilberforce MP, led the campaign for emancipation that ended with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act on August 1^st, 1833.

However, Yorkshire Day’s modern roots lie in protest.  In 1975 the Yorkshire Ridings Society in Beverley used the day to protest the local government re-organisation of the previous year.  The word riding is, by the way, derived from the Danish word thridding, meaning third, or in this case one of three, North, East and West).  Those reforms introduced the two-tier (county and district) system of local government that has remained largely intact, in North Yorkshire at least, until now.

Last week, Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick announced the much-trailed devolution settlement for North Yorkshire.  The two-tier system goes, with a single unitary authority to be constituted from April 2023, serving the 618,000 residents of the county (excluding the City of York) and costing an estimated £38 millions of your money and mine to set up.  This ending an increasingly bitter scrap between two opposing bids for unitary powers, that of Councillor Carl Les’ North Yorkshire County Council, arguing for a single unitary authority and that of the seven districts, led by Harrogate’s own Councillor Richard Cooper, arguing for two.  Between them this sorry lot spent a staggering £330,000 of our money on consultants from PWC (North Yorkshire, £90,000) and KPMG (seven districts, £240,000) to help write their respective bids.  The more I hear about government spending on big consultancies (£3 billion on Test & Trace anyone?) the more I think I’m in the wrong game.

I doubt very much that this Yorkshire Day will see anyone lamenting the demise of Harrogate Borough Council, let alone the organisation of a protest at the reforms.  This council will disappear leaving an honours board of failure and mismanagement and leave a mettlesome legacy to the new unitary:  The financial sink hole that is the Harrogate Convention Centre, the actual sink hole at the new Ripon baths, the vanity project that is the council HQ at Knapping Mount, the outdated (and undelivered) town plan, a £165,000 Visit Harrogate website, a diminished and drab Harrogate town centre, a hotch-potch of unsympathetic housing developments, a political culture astonishing for its secrecy (more politburo than democratic body) and profligacy (Viv Nicholson would blush) and, perhaps most damning of all, it leaves a fragmented, fractious and divided group of stakeholders that the council under Richard Cooper’s grip has consistently sought to divide and conquer, rather than bring together in common purpose.  If this is the demise of Harrogate’s Dear Leader, then good riddance.  I wouldn’t bet on it though, as word reaches me that the starting gun has fired in Harrogate & Knaresborough Conservative Association on jockeying for selection for the new council seats.  As ever in these matters the likely outcome is ‘different party, same guests.’

Thank goodness the Secretary of State rejected the so-called east-west bid, citing likely and significant disruption during the transition period.  He makes the case that the unitary will benefit the county by between £58 and £61 millions per year.  We can but hope the additional funds are spent wisely and in our interests.  I’m in favour of the new authority.  I want to pay one council tax to a single and accountable body.  I want my local authority territory to match that of the pending re-organisation of the NHS, so that the council and Integrated Care Systems can work together in concert to promote public health, preventive care and to improve health equity and outcomes across our population.

I don’t buy the argument that the unitary will be ‘distant’ on the merits, any distance being in fact a product of our own lack of engagement and action.  Local politicians have been quick to say they fear the new deal will lead to fewer voices standing up for local people.  Call me cynical but I have an inkling that what they fear is that it won’t be their voice.

So, this August 1^st I choose to celebrate the bravery of the Yorkshire Light Infantry at Minden and the emancipation vision of William Wilberforce.  While perhaps not quite as perspicacious as Kingston-Upon-Hull’s famous son, we should celebrate too that the members of the Yorkshire Ridings Society circa 1975 knew and warned us that the two-tier system of local government was doomed to fail.

Happy Yorkshire Day.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More: 

• Strayside Sunday:  That sinking feeling in Ripon
• Harrogate Borough Council believes itself above scrutiny

Less than two weeks remain for people in North Yorkshire to have a say on how the county’s local government will look in the future.

Earlier this year, Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick announced that two proposals from councils in the area would be taken forward as part of the Local Government Reorganisation process.  The consultation closes on April 19.

North Yorkshire County Council has submitted a bid for one large authority to cover the county, with more powers passed on to town and parish councils. City of York Council, itself already a unitary, would be left as it is under the proposals.

Six of the county’s seven district councils – Scarborough, Harrogate, Ryedale, Craven, Selby and Richmondshire – submitted a proposal dubbed the “East & West plan” that would see the county and York split in half to create two authorities of roughly the same population size under one Mayor.

Scarborough, Ryedale, Selby and York would be in one authority with Craven, Hambleton, Richmondshire and Harrogate in the other. Both bids would see Scarborough and the other six district councils scrapped.

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The consultation asks a number of questions about each proposal around value for money, proposed geography of the council and impact of the proposal on local services.

Residents, councils, Local Enterprise Partnerships, public service providers, businesses and voluntary organisations all have the opportunity to have their say on which proposal, if any, they see as the best fit for their area.

Jenrick will consider all proposals following the consultation before making a decision about which option, if any, to implement. This would be subject to Parliamentary approval.

Subject to Parliamentary approval, it is expected that any new unitary council would be fully operational from April 2023 with transitional arrangements expected to be in place from 2022, including elections in May 2022 to the shadow or continuing councils.

To take part in the consultation visit www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposals-for-locally-led-reorganisation-of-local-government-in-cumbria-north-yorkshire-and-somerset.