The ten local authorities in Greater Manchester have a decision to make over the next few weeks: whether to go ahead and form a new “City Region” – a body which would see the ten authorities working together to deliver transport (as now), post-16 education funding, skills & training funding and inward investment.

In Stockport we had an all-party briefing from officers, including Howard Bernstein who’s closely involved with  the plans.

The aim is for Stockport to make its decision at an Extraordinary General Meeting prior to the budget meeting on  25th Feb, with the Manchester-wide decision being taken before the General Election.

I should say up front that I haven’t made up my mind on this one.  I can certainly see some logic to it, but I’ve some big concerns too.

The current situation

After Greater Manchester County Council was abolished in 1985, the ten metropolitain borough councils established AGMA – the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities – as a voluntary way to work together where it made sense to do so.

Four “joint authorities” were also created to oversee/run fire, police, waste and (some) transport services across Greater Manchester.

It’s argued that AGMA has been beneficial, giving Greater Manchester a bigger voice, more influence over national and regional policy and more direct control city-wide decisions.

AGMA and the join authorities are not directly accountable to voters.  They have some accountability to councils.

The case for a City Region

The “City Region” is something new from central government.  The idea is to take regionally some of the powers currently held by Government agencies and quangos, in the area of our economic development.

For example, the City Region would control the £600 million annual budget for post-16 education in Greater Manchester, would work to attract investment and boost jobs.

We’re all joined at the hip, the argument goes.  We (the ten Greater Manchester authorities) need to work together more to benefit  us all.

The consultants say there’s no reason for this new “Combined Authority” City Region to cost more  – it’s claimed to be an efficient and effective option.

The alternatives

We’re told that there are two alternatives to this new Combined Authority City Region, covering economic development and transport.

1. Leave AGMA and the joint authorities as they are now, but create a new joint authority for economic development (on top of transport, waste, police & fire).

2. Keep the status quo.

The concerns

Here are some of the concerns that were raised in the briefing session:

• AGMA requires a 7-3 majority vote to take action – meaning that no one political party can force things through on its own.  The new Combined Authority will work on simple majority voting.
• The Combined Authority is not answerable to voters in any way.  If you think they’re doing something wrong, there’s no way you can vote to express that – especially if the leader of your council voted against the decision.  Local Authority councillors can have a degree of oversight.
• It’s much more difficult (and potentially not possible) for local authorities to withdraw from the Combined Authority once they’re in.  In fact, authorities could potentially be forced to join even if they don’t want to.
• The details are vague.  No-one knows exactly what the new body will do, how much money it will cost (or save) and whether it would be better than going it alone.  Lots of time and money has been spent investigating, but we’re still going on educated guesses.
• What if it went in the wrong direction?  Remember the Congestion Charge?  Had a referendum not been forced through, that would have been imposed by a similar body.
• Why bundle in transport (which is something we probably do want to continue being dealt with on a Greater Manchester basis) with the much woolier and less clear-cut economic investment?

This certainly isn’t my area of expertise, so there may be errors and omissions, which I’ll correct whenever they’re spotted.

In the meantime, please have your say.