Announcements of the Leader of the Council.
Minutes:
Councillor Steve Flitter, Leader of the Council, made the following statement:
“After a relatively quiet August in relation to meetings, September has bought a flourish of information from the DCN and DLUCH and other ministerial information that keeps rolling in, but what I thought the most relevant topic would be the Vision Derbyshire and New Mayoral arrangements and how we in the Dales are approaching this.
As you know, only 2 district Derbyshire authorities will join 2 from Nottinghamshire leaving the rest on the sidelines. I have repeatedly stated that the selection of those representatives should allow a fair reflection of demographics and not based on politics or size of authority alone, but alas politics has been a factor with Chesterfield and High Peak taking those positions, however what I did achieve at that meeting on Tuesday afternoon was continued regular meetings between Derbyshire Leaders.
A couple of weeks ago the Derbyshire leaders and Chief Executive met at County Hall and met Mark Rogers the CEO of the Interim Shadow board team of seven people covering issues of operational matters, Communications, Finance and Investment, Strategy and delivery, Transport and Governance.
Their task is to prepare for change and we heard about creating a single economic plan involving all country, cities, boroughs and district councils to bring more monies into the area, and the need to review existing work and contribute new ideas being careful not to just replace work undertaken to date.
The key principles are Accountability, Inclusivity, Subsidiarity, Choice, Governance, Scrutiny and Audit.
Many questions followed but a very pertinent point raised was what if the incoming Mayor disagreed with the shape, size or composition of new arrangements – that has to be tested.
Whether we agree or not with the new Mayoral elections, soon it will be the only game in town. The level of influence is paramount but if we are put in a situation where we literally have to fight for crumbs on the table we should be well informed and ready to act.
With that in mind I am ready to interact with a new Derbyshire Strategic leadership board and all Derbyshire leaders, hopefully setting work streams for economic growth, employment and skills, health and communities, public service reform, transport, climate change, planning and housing.
Circling Squares – on Monday night, I thought it was important that members had a presentation of the work that was undertaken from September 22 until Feb 23 with the report in March. I hope members recognise that the whole discussion on Resilience and Resources was timely because of Paul Wilson’s report to this council. We may not agree with everything in that presentation, but we now have a basis for those discussions that will give our officers to the resources to develop ideas and take this council forward in a positive manner.
I thank those who attended the meeting on Tuesday with the Peak National Park Authority, I found it informative and useful and although they reflect on the fact that the starting point and legislation is different from the Dales I am hopeful that we can develop an officer / member group to examine opportunities of a joint approach.
Future partnership working is so important, especially with the challenges that lie ahead.”