The Assistant Chief Executive outlined the background to devolution. In February PWC was appointed to do an independent analysis of unitary government options for Oxfordshire.  There is a member’s presentation on the report on Monday 11 July.  She said the vision of the report would focus on which areas could be done better under unitary authorities.  The proposal does not assume bigger is better but whether it’s possible to get a better balance to reflect the needs of the city vs needs of market towns with the flexibility to make all of the authorities work together on some things.

Brexit and the resignation of the Prime Minister has caused some uncertainty to the timeframe of the project as there is concern about ministerial and governmental capacity to engage in the process.

The PWC report will discuss:

1. different options and whether they will deliver better outcomes for people

2. how integrated services with  produce better outcomes

3. membership, accountability, staffing

4. Preventing increased risk to the vulnerable

5. Testing the scope and capacity to make change

The Chair asked why the report had been delayed when it was supposed to have been completed by 30 June.  The delay was due to data analysis and report collation taking longer than anticipated.

Cllr Hayes asked if there was a level of confidence for devolution to continue. The Assistant Chief Executive replied that devolution was still on the government’s agenda however the capacity to do it is uncertain.

Cllr Pegg asked since Oxfordshire County Council’s plan had not been published, why they are already lobbying/ advertising it and can we do anything about it?

The Assistant Chief Executive explained that the City’s public engagement hasn’t begun yet and we wanted to provide evidence based approach rather than a PR one.

Cllr Pegg asked whether the other authorities are happy with the suggested merges. The Assistant Chief Executive said that PWC was going to look at all 4 options within the county. District councils have an open mind whether 4 or 3 authorities are formed.

Cllr Coulter questioned why there was no mention of a directly elected mayor, as DCLG has suggested only large changes would be considered if they included a mayor.

The Assistant Chief Executive agreed that previous deals had required the inclusion of a mayor and that the proposal would have to be clear on the issue – which was yet to be addressed.

Cllr Coulter said that the DCLG felt the ideal size of a unitary authority to be 325,000 residents which is much bigger than what we are proposing in Oxford.

The Assistant Chief Executive agreed that the traditional view of the civil service was a unitary of between 300-600,000 people. The County has over 600,000 but we need to consider population growth. We are considering a unitary authority over many authorities which is a different model to previous suggestions.

Scrutiny review  - 

Cllr Simmons felt the Review Group’s brief needed to be narrowed to focus on the real issues. Do we want to focus on:

1. making the PWC report better and scrutinising that, or

2. reviewing the County  report or

3. Look independently at both reports and test both.

The Assistant Chief Executive suggested the panel did their work once they had seen the outcomes of all the reports commissioned and concentrate on the different proposition being offered.

Cllr Wilkinson asked whether there was a similar criteria for the two reports. The Assistant Chief Executive said that they should be able to measure them on the same framework. The City has talked to other authorities, the study was commissioned together and collective proposal will be agree on the basis of the PWC report.

Cllr Tidball asked that the panel reviewed proposals with Brexit in mind.

The Committee AGREED that the Panel should not meet until both the County and PWC reports are published.  The first meeting (at the end of August) will be to tighten up the scope and decide the panel’s meeting and length of review.

The Scrutiny Officer reminded the Committee that the Committee’s review on language schools could not start until this one had finished.

The Panel membership was AGREED with Cllr Tidball appointed chair.