Issue - meetings

Councillor John Ritchie, Portfolio Holder for Devolution provided an update on progress of Local Government Reorganisation and letter received from Government relating to the drafting of the Structural Changes Order.

Councillor John Ritchie left the meeting at 13:15 hours.

The following update was provided for Members by the Interim Strategic Director of Economic Growth:

·       The Government’s Local Government Reorganisation Statutory Consultion ends 22^nd March 2026.

·       The Chief Executive has received an invitation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to discuss the proposals submitted.

·       Derbyshire Chief Executive’s continued to meet on a weekly basis and were considering the next steps with a report on proposed governance arrangements for the workstreams etc to be submitted to the next meeting of Derbyshire Strategic Leadership Board in March.

·       Active engagement is now taking place with colleagues at Derbyshire County Council with fair representation across all of the Workstreams and working groups which were meeting.

·       MHCLG has asked for each proposal put forward by Derbyshire (the four options of the North/South split supported by the Boroughs and Districts and Derby City Council).  ‘Listening’ meetings were due to take place with each respective Chief Executive or group of Chief Executives meeting with MHCLG to ‘pitch’ the proposal that they supported.

·       Government was still pushing forward at pace on the deadlines, and it was hoped that a decision for Derbyshire would be announced by June.  This decision would kickstart a huge amount of work in the workstreams.