Councillors are to be asked to formally accept the government’s devolution plans for a “mayoral county combined authority” (MCCA) for Sussex and Brighton at a meeting next week.
Brighton and Hove City Council is due to meet on Monday (13 October), before a council cabinet meeting on Thursday 16 October, with members asked to endorse the proposal.
The government will take the next steps once it has the backing of Brighton and Hove City Council, East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council.
Ministers will then ask Parliament to make the necessary legal changes to allow Sussex voters to elect an executive mayor in May next year.
The mayor would then be expected to make decisions in several key policy areas, alongside members of mayoral county combined authority, made up of the leaders of the main local councils.
The new combined authority would be expected to drive growth and shape public services with responsibility for
- Transport and local infrastructure
- Skills and employment support
- Housing and strategic planning
- Economic development and regeneration
- Environment and climate change
- Health, wellbeing and public service reform
- Public safety
The government carried out a public consultation earlier this year on creating a mayoral county combined authority for Sussex and Brighton.
In July, the government published the results and said that it would push ahead with plans for the proposed mayoral election next May.
The changes will not affect the ceremonial mayor of Brighton and Hove or others elsewhere across Sussex.
The new devolved mayoral authority is due to be set up a year before a proposed shake up of councils across Sussex – known as local government reorganisation.
The government wants Sussex to have a small number of unitary councils – like Brighton and Hove City Council.
At the moment, the rest of Sussex has a two-tier set up, with county and district councils running different services in the same areas.
Ministers had hoped that the existing councils in Sussex would come up with a joint proposal for the new-look unitary councils but several different ideas have been submitted.
Brighton and Hove City Council has suggested five unitary councils, each covering a population of between 300,000 and 400,000.
The full council is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4.30pm on Monday (13 October). The cabinet is scheduled to meet at 2pm on Thursday 16 October. Both meetings are expected to be webcast.
Councillors should not be the people deciding on this new post as they are the likely candidates for the job. We, the people, are going to have to pay for this new post so we should have some say in these changes.
We did have a say in these changes, Bob, although I’m sure there are people on here who will be debating whether it was meaningful or not. It’s unlikely that our current councillors will be candidates for the Mayoral election; we have already had a few declarations, and following the gossip, we’re anticipating candidates who aren’t councillors.
Did I miss the referendum then? You can’t say that I voted for this at an election… that only is really an opinion poll on how bad the last lot were. We all know manifesto promises mean nothing.
It’s been in multiple parties’ manifestos since 2015, so regardless of your political leaning, chances are that you did, in fact, vote for this at an election, Bob. There have also been several rounds of consultation; at national level for the framework, and then at local level regarding implementation in Sussex.
Seems like you might have missed about a decade!