West Yorkshire Combined Authority – York’s share of costs benefits revealed

A Freedom of Information response has revealed the amount that York has paid into the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, as well as the claimed benefits.

Last year, York paid £21,645 as its share of the cost of the “Your next Bus” project which we commented on a few weeks ago.  The City is due to pay another £21,645 this year towards the project.

smart ticketing

smart ticketing

 It is unclear when this new bus tracking system will be operational.

The WYCA also claims to have spent £318,149 on “smart bus ticketing” in the York area.  This was funded by central government grant and should lead to the extended use of cashless payment options for bus travel.  Again it is unclear when this option will be widely available in the City.

York is also due to pay £48,486 to the WYCA this year as its share of the Leeds Region Local Enterprise Partnership costs.

Benefits are expected to include participation in an “Apprentice Hub” programme and an employer ownership pilot.

The WYCA had a (largely inherited) pension liability of over £68 million at the end of the last financial year. It currently admits a total deficit on its reserves of £33 million but has a working balance of £7.9 million. It is not known whether, under devolution proposals, York will remain a participant in the WYCA.

NB. Over £150,000 a year in “special responsibility payments” are being claimed by Councillors serving on WYCA committees although these area not highlighted in the annual figures published by the York Council. All WYCA members receive a basic allowance of £4500 a year

“Lets start talking” -Lib Dems call for return of committee system

Yorkshire loses chance of more powers in the wake of the elected Mayor impasse.

The government announced some delegated powers for the York and West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) yesterday but did not go as far as has been offered to Manchester. The government (rightly) says that the decision takers in Leeds – a gang of Labour Council Leaders – are not directly democratically accountable.

Given the appalling mess that some single party dominated Councils (Doncaster, Rotherham etc) have got into, the elected Mayor model is little better, substituting an elected dictator for what should be wide ranging debate and democracy..

The solution is to have a small directly elected Executive for the WYCA. To avoid dominance by one party (unless electors wanted that) seats should be allocated in proportion to the votes cast for each party.

Electors should have a say on which individual candidates they prefer (to avoid the party list monopoly -which is the major failure of the European election system). Costs could be contained by gradually reducing – by around 10% – the number of Councillors elected to other authorities. There should be a power of recall.

There is an opportunity to have a genuinely open system with social media having already shown how increasing numbers of residents can participate in debates about issues.

Mean while locally, the Liberal Democrat Group on City of York Council are calling for a radical overhaul of the way the council takes decisions with a return to a committee system.

Under the council’s current ‘leader and cabinet’ model, decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of just six cabinet members. Under a committee system, the cabinet would be scrapped and policy would instead be made by various cross-party committees with all political groups represented.

A Lib Dem motion on the issue will be debated at next Thursday’s full council meeting. The motion argues that the current system is “not-fit-for-purpose” and a more “open and collaborative” approach is needed.

The potential change was made possible through the Coalition Government’s 2011 Localism Act. Following this, a number of councils including Sutton and Brighton & Hove have moved to a committee-style system.

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