Agenda item

The agenda item includes updates on:

·         Update on Work with Combined Authority

·         Six-Monthly Report on Strategic Risk Register

·         Forward Plan

·         Financial monitoring

The Executive Board NOTED the City Deal progress report.

Tanya Sheridan, City Deal Programme Director presented the report which set out the progress on the delivery of agreed projects and work streams in which the City Deal was investing. The Executive Board was informed that a meeting had taken place with Network Rail on 23 February 2017 and that a meeting with Highways England would take place later in March.

Barbara Taylor was invited to ask her pre-submitted question, as detailed in the notice of public questions. In response to Ms Taylor’s question, the following points were made:

·         It was envisaged that public consultations would take place in parallel for the Milton Road project on the detailed scheme design and on the associated traffic regulation orders; the latter being a statutory consultation. This would allow comments and views to be submitted by the public on scheme design and traffic regulation orders in parallel, for consideration by the Executive Board. Discussions would take place with the Local Liaison Forum before a report was presented to the Joint Assembly and Executive Board in June 2017.

Councillor Roger Hickford informed the Executive Board of the discussion which had taken place at the Joint Assembly meeting, regarding this agenda item:

·         The Joint Assembly had raised concern that the City Deal was repeatedly referred to as a £1 billion investment programme, but as yet there had been relatively little extra funding secured. It was felt that more emphasis should be made on leveraging more funding. Officers had informed the Joint Assembly that the City Deal had the potential to reach £1 billion.

·         Concern was raised that the apprenticeship programme was not proceeding quickly enough. Joint Assembly members that formed the Skills Group, assured the Joint Assembly that activities were ongoing and were monitored and evaluated for outcomes.

In response to the update from the Joint Assembly, the City Deal Programme Director outlined the funding that was coming forward. This was envisaged to be up to £1 billion covering a range of anticipated local investment supporting housing and employment growth. Members were also informed that regarding the skills work stream, evaluation of the Form the Future contract had taken place and further evaluation was planned.

In response to concern raised by the Vice Chairman regarding housing and planning, the Executive Board was informed that new homes were only being counted towards the target of 1000 additional homes on rural exception sites or affordable houses on 5 year land supply sites once South Cambridgeshire was running ahead of its housing trajectory for the submitted local plan, which currently was not the case.  Until this was above the profile for the Local Plan trajectory, performance would remain at zero against the target. The Vice Chairman requested that future progress reports made clear where the City Deal was in terms of the 1000 additional homes target, suggesting a graph be included to make this clear.

The Vice Chairman requested that future progress reports made clear where the City Deal was on the path to reaching its target regarding apprenticeships, and how progress was being made to achieving the target. Officers agreed to work with the Local Enterprise Partnership to gather more data for the next progress report.

In response to a query regarding the Western Orbital decision point on the milestones plan, the Executive Board was informed that this would be in July 2017.

Members were informed that an organogram of City Deal staff should be available in June or July 2017, which would be provided to members.

The Vice Chairman requested that where possible, two officer names be provided in the officer lead column of the forward plan.

Rachel Stopard, City Deal Interim Chief Executive introduced Chris Tunstall as Interim City Deal Transport Director.

In response to a query regarding the possibility of leveraging funding from the private sector, the Executive Board was informed that more information on funding streams would be brought to the Executive Board at its next meeting. More information on funding streams such as S106 and CIL, was requested in the next financial report, to provide the Executive Board with a better understanding of the funding sources.

In response to a query regarding the cumulative housing trajectories outlined in Figure 1 of the report, the Joint Director for Planning and Economic Development informed the Executive Board that projections had been carried out immediately post Brexit and were pessimistic. The Executive Board requested further projection and analysis of the different funding sources.

The Executive Board NOTED the City Deal progress report.