Funding and transparency concerns over Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s plans

The county’s mayor was not in attendance on Monday as members scrutinised an updated version of the authority’s constitution.

As chairman, Cllr Lorna Dupré looked over the 230 page document and said: “Mayor Palmer is going to face tough questions when he attends our next meeting as this committee seeks urgent answers.”

Cllr Marcus Gehring said: “I have many concerns with this document, for example – the way the CEO is remunerated has no scrutiny at all, and this is actually written into the articles of our constitution.

“I really don’t understand why a public body that is tasked with delivering projects from public money is not open to more transparency.

“Previously I was told it would allow us to access funds otherwise not available.

“That would be fine if it were true, but it isn’t, and I just think this committee should play a role in the decision-making process taken by the executive members of the authority.

“Otherwise, if we were ever questioned about our scrutiny role, this committee might not necessarily be shielded from the consequences.”

Cllr Jocelynne Scutt was also concerned: “Surely the more transparent we are, the better; but Mayor Palmer keeps increasing the number of meetings closed to the press and public.

“Local government has always been criticised for this and it’s hardly surprising when the public is denied an understanding of what we do with their money.

“If we, in a scrutiny role, do our jobs properly, then we shouldn’t endorse any situation where there doesn’t appear to be proper transparency – but our constitution allows this.”

Cllr Kevin Price went further: “I’m seriously worried about a mayor who seems determined to make every executive decision on his own.

“The CPCA was set up so that each leader of each constituent authority could work on ideas with a mayor, who would simply chair their meetings bringing everybody together.

“It seems to me what we have is a mayoral authority with random people down there below him who can be asked the odd question every so often when they put in a report.

“I have enormous concerns that Mayor Palmer seems to appoint every executive member as if it was the mayor’s role to appoint everybody and everything just to work around him.

“It was intended that people from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough would work for a common aim, and not one man’s ego trip.”

Cllr Gehring added: “The mayor was widely criticised last October for the huge sums of money he announced would be needed to delivery his projects; but he told all of us not to worry as he could ‘get the money’.

“Now we’re told by Mayor Palmer that he can’t even raise £300,000 for his projects, much less than the millions of pounds he promised – and nowhere near the billions he needs to deliver this infrastructure project.

“With absolutely no idea how to finance his entire venture I’m hesitating to say this authority is a good use of public money when there’s not even a glimpse of an idea as to how we’re going to fund any of it.”

Cllr Pippa Heylings had similar worries: “I seriously question the level of confidence that we as a scrutiny committee can give to the board members for the financial viability of the mayor’s projects.

“Mayor Palmer requested £1 million of public money on the basis, he told us, ‘it will generate £2 million matched funding for the CAM Metro’.

“But we now discover barely £300,000 has been raised, and he struggled to get that much, so we now have to fund the full amount from somewhere else, but where?

“The board believed Mayor Palmer’s promises and made their decision on his further fundraising ability.

“But, I don’t see anything that I’m hearing today that would give me any confidence in him making any future decisions of that nature.

“The boards’ trust was misplaced, and funding wasn’t forthcoming, so what possible level of confidence and what further reassurances can be given for him continuing to take these decisions?”

Cllr Dupré and Chief Executive Officer John Hill both agreed with members that certain issues should be made more transparent and that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee should have more of a say in some decisions made at executive level.

A question to that effect will be put to Mayor Palmer at the committee’s next meeting in September.

Responding to what was said in the meeting, the mayor said: “In regard to the funding of the CAM Metro Outline Business Case (OBC) it is not the case that we have failed to raise the necessary finance as was suggested at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting. This is plain wrong. In fact, combined authority board members raised that it would better for the (OBC) stage to be funded by public sector contributions.

“So the board on Wednesday is being invited to make an additional £1.7 million available from money already set aside in the combined authority’s budget to fund this work - £300,000 is being contributed by the Greater Cambridge Partnership.

“We already have a broad funding strategy for the overall CAM project and part of the OBC work will be developing that strategy in more detail. Cllr Gehring stating that there is no plan to finance this project is utter nonsense and calls into question whether he has even the most basic knowledge of this scheme.

“Indeed, these ridiculous claims around the CAM funding are from political opposition and once again I find myself having to defend myself on points of simple fact. The CAM project is on course.

“Moving forward to this OBC stage was unanimously approved by the combined authority board. We have just established a CAM Partnership Board of public and private sector partners, including the Greater Cambridge Partnership, to further strengthen the collaborative approach needed to make this scheme work.

“The strategic outline business case for the CAM was incredibly strong, offering up to £4 in economic returns for every £1 invested and delivering the public transport solution needed to tackle the strategic challenges that threaten our future economy.

“This is a unique opportunity, with unanimous support on the combined authority board, but once again, political opposition on the O&S committee would prefer to try to score political points and act as wreckers rather than actually doing what they are supposed to do by challenging us to do better.

“This happened under the last chair and I fear it is happening again. For Cllr Price to state I’m on an ‘ego trip’ is shameful and achieves nothing for the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough who are relying on us to deliver.

“In terms of scrutiny and transparency, I have always said that this is central to good democracy and the O&S committee has a crucial role to play in making the combined authority’s work better.

“I attend the meetings when asked, and I will certainly be there in September, as requested, and I’m absolutely prepared to be challenged.

“But for the political opposition on the committee to attempt to act as a blocker on progress to schemes which have been approved and throw around baseless accusations is unacceptable and goes against completely what the O&S committee is tasked to do.”

Robert Alexander, Local Democracy Reporting Service