A report aimed at getting the region’s political leaders to stop squabbling and get along has exposed a broken system at the West of England Combined Authority (Weca). No one ever agreed what the regional body was for in the first place when it was set up in 2017, let alone now following a series of high-profile spats, embarrassingly lengthy unplanned breaks in public meetings and rows over the organisation’s entire purpose, and urgent action is needed to fix it, experts say.
The fact-finding report by Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives), which was brought in to do a “peer review challenge” after external auditors found five significant weaknesses in Weca’s value-for-money arrangements, makes 17 initial recommendations. They include not only ways that metro mayor Dan Norris, who heads Weca, and the leaders of its three councils – Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset – can work together better but a call for the combined authority to expand to include North Somerset and also resume its abandoned housing masterplan.
Earlier this month it emerged Weca has been placed on a government “watchlist” because of the “strained relationships” auditors Grant Thornton found between Mr Norris, fellow Labour mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, South Gloucestershire leader Conservative Cllr Toby Savage and B&NES leader Lib Dem Cllr Kevin Guy. Papers to the latest Weca committee on Friday, March 17, included a letter from Local Government Minister Lee Rowley to the West of England mayor with a thinly veiled threat that Whitehall “best value” inspectors could be sent in to sort Weca if it doesn’t do so itself.
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