Cllr Dr Dave Baigent (Labour – Romsey) raised an issue that reflected our city and county’s broken governance structures at Cambridge City Council’s Planning and Transport Scrutiny Committee at Cambridge Guildhall last night.
Image: The Trials of Democracy by Hilary Cox Condron and Friends – get involved here!
You can see the meeting papers here (and the video of my PQ and the response here because I show up to such guildhall meetings like I own the place!)
Cllr Baigent’s concern was that there was no standing item on the Cambridge Growth Company / Cambridge Delivery Group on the agenda, something that had previously been agreed at a meeting before the general election.
The Deputy Director of the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, Heather Jones explained that it would be the Strategy and Resources Committee that would be taking on that function as the Leader of Cambridge City Council, Mike Davey (Labour – Petersfield) would be the lead member where he is held accountable.
Cllr Baigent said he was not comfortable with that arrangement – saying that the appropriate committee to be scrutinising the work of the Cambridge Growth Company was the Planning and Transport Scrutiny Committee – putting emphasis on the word ‘Scrutiny’. This is where backbench councillors get to scrutinise the senior council officers over the decisions that they take, which is why Cllr Baigent sustained his complaint.
“I believe this committee has the right to scrutinise what [The Director of the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service] said to the Cambridge Growth Company”
The same papers were debated the following morning by South Cambridgeshire District Council
You can read them here, and see the video footage here – they managed to get through the reports very quickly, but given the depth of some of them (some of which were consultation documents simply needing a rubber stamp to be published), I expect the substantive scrutiny will come when residents and campaign groups have had the chance to feed back their comments to councillors.
‘Why have one meeting when you can have four?’
Noting county councillors will want to have their say, and also the Combined Authority councillors in districts outside Cambridge City & South Cambridgeshire District indicated that they wanted to be able to feed into decision-making on the Government’s plans that affected their council areas.
Not so long ago, Cambridgeshire County Council re-formed its old Cambridge Joint Area Committee to get rid of the farce that was councillors representing northern Fenland divisions who seldom went near Cambridge taking decisions on things like street parking 40 miles away in Cambridge suburbs. On that committee are six county councillors alongside six city councillors nominated by Cambridge City Council.
How do you ensure workloads do not balloon while ensuring policies and plans are scrutinised?
Good question.
In the case of Cambridge City Council, for any Cambridge Growth Company issues on the Strategy & Resources Committee, they could invite any interested councillors to sit in on those items as if members of the committee, but not give them committee voting rights (as the committee has to be party-politically-balanced as per the Council’s constitution). Alternatively, Cambridge City Council can, either alone or with South Cambridgeshire District and Cambridgeshire County Council, create a joint ‘Cambridge Growth Scrutiny Committee’ with the remit of scrutinising not just the Growth Company but any institution involved in the shaping of the Government’s policies and the delivery of the Company’s objectives.
Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council calls for more opportunities to scrutinise individuals from outside organisations following Anglian Water’s appearance at South Cambridgeshire Hall
You can watch the full scrutiny of Anglian Water at South Cambridgeshire District Council on 17 October 2024 here. Alternatively, you can listen to Cllr Anna Bradnam’s summary here.
This is something that local government in/around Cambridge could – and I think should expand on. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is a recommendation from the Centre for Public Scrutiny from back in 2013.
Above – Proposal from the CfPS June 2013 – today the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny
While there are no powers for councils to compel anyone to attend, there is a Devolution Bill being drawn up by Ministers. If Cambridgeshire councillors can establish a ‘Cambridge Growth Scrutiny Committee’ between now and the Committee stages of the Bill, there is nothing to stop anyone calling on MPs or Peers to table an amendment to the Bill to make provisions to give councils new powers to establish such committees if they don’t already exist – and consider powers of compulsion/summons.
Scrutinising the work on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus
The number of people working on the campus is striking – as Cllr Brian Milnes stated.
“37,000 people work on the CBC and that’s going to increase by tens of thousands.”
Above – Cllr Brian Milnes (Lib Dems – Sawston, South Cambridgeshire District Council), 05 Nov 2024.
It’s worth listening to the statement from Cllr Milnes in full, and consider what he said about Transport.
“The simple spur road to a Park’n’Ride is not going to be a substantive answer to the transport question”
Above – Cllr Milnes on the limitations of some of the transport proposals coming from the Greater Cambridge Partnership.
This is consistent with what Cllr Anna Smith (Labour – Coleridge, Cambridge City Council), Deputy Mayor of the Combined Authority and Chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee) said in response to my public question on 04 November 2024 about post-GCP projects. You can watch the video here.
My original Q from item 4 stated:
“Item 13 – Appendix A – p7 states: “The Greater Cambridge Partnership’s (GCP) Making Connections programme was a potential solution to this with the aim of reducing traffic volumes within the city by 15% on a 2017 base, but this is not now progressing. This creates a significant gap, given its potential to alleviate congestion in and around Cambridge and contribute to a significant improvement of the public transport network.”
“The CPCA is leading work with the local authorities and GCP to explore solutions to this via the emerging Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy” Please can the CPCA initiate discussions with ministers about building a light rail for Greater Cambridge as envisioned by Connect Cambridge for the years after the GCP funding comes to an end.”
Above – CPCA T&I Cttee 04 Nov 2024 Item 4 Q1
Cllr Milnes who is the South Cambridgeshire District Council representative on the Board of the GCP (along with Cllr Mike Davey for Cambridge City Council, and Cllr Elisa Meschini (Lab- King’s Hedges Division) for Cambridgeshire County Council) stated that whatever impact the CSET busway will have will not be enough in the medium-long term. Not least because of the recent statement and letter from the Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook MP to Peter Freeman of the Cambridge Growth Company about expectations on the urban expansion of Cambridge being ‘in at least one direction’. Hence calling it ‘The John Parry Question’ here.
“Couldn’t they set up a shadow authority?”
I think there’s scope in exploring a Greater Cambridge Growth Scrutiny Committee *and* inviting councillors representing wards over the county border to attend. These could include councillors at town, district, and county level for places like:
- Haverhill
- Chatteris
- Newmarket
- Huntingdon
- Royston
- Saffron Walden
…mindful that many residents in those towns already commute to Cambridge – therefore their experiences must be accounted for in a way that the current structures do not allow.
I’m not too concerned about the details of how many people are on the committee, and whether there should be sub-committees, or what the full remit should be. What I am concerned about is that the inputs of residents outside of the county – especially teenagers and young people, are not being included in a routine and regular manner.
A question that councillors – and MPs may wish to put to the Housing Minister and his advisers?
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Below: Opening this month: The Cambridge Room. Let’s talk about the future of our city – design and built environment included
The Cambridge Town Owl 