About AGMA

The Summit took place on the 29th July at Manchester Central.  An invite was extended to all authorities, members and Greater Manchester MP’s, neighbouring authorities, key partnerships, private sector partners involved in commissions and the voluntary sector.

The agenda was themed around two core topics:
MIER and GM Strategy – ‘Making it happen Locally’
Improvement and Efficiency in the context of fiscal constraints.

Guest speakers included Jonathan Kestenbaum (NESTA and MIER Contributor) and Helen Bailey (HM Treasury) supported by speakers representing authorities and the commissions, facilitated by Jim Hancock.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority Publishes Final Scheme

All 10 Greater Manchester local authorities and GMITA have today agreed to submit a scheme to the Government for the creation of a new authority. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority   would be established to co-ordinate transport, regeneration and economic development functions and to oversee the performance of the new devolved powers in the Pilot City Region agreement which was signed last December by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities(AGMA) Leaders and the Regional Minister.

Under the new arrangements a Joint Committee would be established to assume responsibility for delivering transport across the Manchester City Region.

The creation of the combined authority would see a real and significant transfer of powers  from central government to the City Region. Transport powers, for example, would be similar to those wielded by Transport for London.

The final scheme can be viewed from the publications section of this page.

The Department for Communities and Local Government will be consulting on the scheme and a draft order. The consultation will run for a minimum of 15 weeks until 14 July 2010.

You can download the consultation document here.

Responses should be sent to:

colin.lovegrove@communities.gsi.gov.uk

Or

Colin Lovegrove
Economic Development Division
Communities and Local Government
Zone 3/G10 Eland House, Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU

The Constitution gives the Executive Board the power to establish strategic commissions.  These are designed to discharge the functions of the Executive Board in respect of particular areas of work.

As at August 2009, five commissions are in operation, being:

·       Commission for the New Economy;
·       Environment;
·       Improvement & Efficiency;
·       Health;
·       Planning & Housing; and
·       Public Protection.

A commission for Transport is also planned, but has not yet been set up. 

The current intention is that each of the Commissions (except Improvement and Efficiency which consists entirely of local authority members) are (or will be) formed of a mixture of elected members and representatives from other partners, including the private sector, other public sector agencies and the voluntary sector. 

Commission representatives are not there to represent specific geographical areas, political groups or sectoral interests, but to perform a role for the city region as a whole; and are appointed based on skills and experience.  Consequently, the intention is that not every local authority will have a representative on each Commission (except Improvement and Efficiency).  Seats are shared out amongst all the local authorities as equally as possible, with no local authority having more than one seat on each Commission.  They are also allocated taking into account political balance within Greater Manchester.

Sub Committees

Unlike Commissions, sub Committees of the Executive Board are formed of one elected member representative from each full member AGMA Authority.  Details of current (and in some cases previous) AGMA Committees can be found in the Commission section below.

Democratic accountability and scrutiny

AGMA’s governance arrangements are designed to ensure that they have a thread of democratic accountability running throughout them.  This is achieved by:
• requiring Executive Board members taking the decisions to be accountable for them within their own authority’s scrutiny arrangements;
• giving any of the ten ‘sovereign’ authorities the opportunity to raise issues at the sub regional level or question decisions taken at that level; and
• putting in place separate independent scrutiny arrangements for the sub regional governance function, carried out by elected members drawn from across the ten authorities. 

The Protocol for scrutiny arrangements is set out in Schedule 4 of the Constitution.  This essentially provides for an AGMA Scrutiny Pool consisting of local authority members.  This has the power to call in non-urgent Executive Board decisions.  At present the Scrutiny Pool meets two weeks after each Executive Board meeting. 

Further information on AGMA’s Scrutiny arrangements can be found here. 

While AGMA has existed since 1986, its governance arrangements have been reviewed in recent years so that they reflect:
• the ambitions which the 10 authorities in Greater Manchester have expressed in terms of collaborating more effectively at a sub regional level on issues where they agree this is necessary;
• a legal framework which shows both a readiness to manage strategic development and financial resources delegated from either a national or regional level; and
• a need to link the functions and work which are done at a strategic sub regional level into a system of democratic accountability, both at a sub regional and individual local authority level.

The current Constitution and associated governance structure were agreed by the Executive Board in August 2008.  A copy of the Constitution is available below.

The Constitution sets out the principles under which AGMA will operate, and the powers and functions of the Executive Board which the 10 Districts have agreed it can provide on their behalf. The Constitution also enables the establishment of the Business Leadership Council and Commissions. 

The key principles are set out in section 1 and include:
• The objective of providing governance arrangements which aim to provide streamlined decision making; excellent co-ordination of services across the combined administrative area; mutual co-operation; partnering arrangements, and added value in the provision of shared services.
• The principle of not seeking to create a separate 'AGMA' local authority; but commitment to retaining the existing structure of 10 metropolitan districts within Greater Manchester and the exercise by any of the local authority members of their statutory functions. 
• A commitment to open and transparent working and proper scrutiny and challenge of the work of the Executive Board.
• A commitment to ensure that any decisions, proposals, actions whether agreed or considered at the Executive Board carry with them an obligation upon the local authority leaders to report these to their own authorities.

The Constitution gives the Executive Board the power to establish strategic commissions.  These are designed to discharge the functions of the Executive Board in respect of particular areas of work. 

As at August 2009, six commissions are in operation, being:
• Commission for the New Economy;
• Environment;
• Improvement & Efficiency;
• Health; and
• Planning & Housing
• Public Protection

A commission for Transport is also planned, but has not yet been set up.

The current intention is that each of the Commissions (except Improvement and Efficiency which consists entirely of local authority members) are (or will be) formed of a mixture of elected members and representatives from other partners, including the private sector, other public sector agencies and the voluntary sector. 

Commission representatives are not there to represent specific geographical areas, political groups or sectoral interests, but to perform a role for the city region as a whole; and are appointed based on skills and experience.  Consequently, the intention is that not every local authority will have a representative on each Commission (except Improvement and Efficiency).  Seats are shared out amongst all the local authorities as equally as possible, with no local authority having more than one seat on each Commission.  They are also allocated taking into account political balance within Greater Manchester.

The BLC is designed to give the private sector a clearly identified role in the AGMA governance structure. 

Its members are drawn from a representative cross section of business/industry sectors and sizes throughout Greater Manchester (including higher education), most of whom are at CEO, director or board chair level. 

Its functions and powers include:
• advising the Executive Board on its ongoing policies and priorities;
• conducting its own reviews on the areas it believes will determine the future economic well-being of Greater Manchester; and
• where issues are particularly important, making recommendations directly to the Executive Board.

View the BLC page

Prosperity for All: the Greater Manchester Strategy

On 31 July 2009 the AGMA Executive Board approved the Greater Manchester Strategy (GMS).  This is AGMA’s overarching document which sets our strategic direction up to 2020. 

The GMS is based around a series of priorities – eleven in total – which can help us to deliver prosperity for all and a higher level of sustainability and quality of life for the city region.  These priorities are not intended to be the only areas of importance for us, but they are the things we wish to tackle to make good on our vision of a long term sustainable economic growth based around a more connected, talented and greener city region where the prosperity secured is enjoyed by the many and not the few. By doing this on a much wider scale, the GMS will add value to the work already underway across the city region. 

These strategic priorities are:

• Early years: Radically improve the early years experience for hard to reach groups, particularly in the most deprived areas.
• Better life chances: Improve life chances in the most deprived areas by investing in lifelong skills development and other forms of supports so that people can compete in the modern labour market.
• The highly skilled: Increase the proportion of highly skilled people in the city region.
• Attracting talent: Attract, retain and nurture the best talent
• Transport: Significantly improve transport connectivity into and within the city region
• The economic base: Expand and diversify the city region’s economic base through digital infrastructure
• International connectivity: Increase the international connectivity of the Manchester city region’s firms, especially to the newly-emerging economies
• A low carbon economy: Achieve a rapid transformation to a low carbon economy
• The housing market: Creating quality places to meet the needs of a competitive city region.
• Effective governance: Review city region governance to ensure effective and efficient delivery mechanisms.

As the GMS is also the basis for the statutory city region pilot, many of the interventions identified in it are directly based on the freedoms and flexibilities agreed through the city region pilot process. 

Implementing the Greater Manchester Strategy:

Over the next several months AGMA will develop the Greater Manchester Strategy ‘Delivery Plan’, in partnership with all those who can make a difference in delivering results for the people of the Manchester city region.  After engaging with and getting commitment from our partners, including the AGMA Commissions, Business Leadership Council and regional/national agencies, we will develop coordinated and prioritised programmes of action. 

As with any set of interventions it is crucial to measure the difference they make and learn lessons from the results. The GMS will therefore include a thorough performance and evaluation framework based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methodology consisting of:

• high level performance measures measuring economic and quality of life indicators related to strategy; and
• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) objectives tracking performance with appropriate measures and baselines of agreed to interventions. 

Papers for meeting's serviced by the AGMA Policy Unit can be found under the Executive Board link