Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has rejected a request by councillors to scrutinise Mayor, Lord Ben Houchen’s, appointment of development corporation chairs without allowing his cabinet a vote.
The TVCA head of law and deputy monitoring officer, Hugh Grime, who signed the decision, argues that to have allowed the cabinet a vote at its annual general meeting (AGM) on 27 June would have been unlawful – even though it would have been in line with what the Authority’s constitution erroneously stated before it was amended at the AGM.
“The constitution (as was)”, writes Grime, “contained provisions which did not properly reflect the underlying legislative framework. To take decisions in accordance with what was erroneously stated in the constitution would have been unlawful – legislation sets out the will of Parliament and cannot be overridden by the Authority’s constitution.”
As North East Bylines pointed out on 23 June, a report to the AGM said that the mayor should make proposals to the cabinet for appointments of development corporation chairs, then abruptly and without explanation changed its position to state that the mayor should make the appointments. As we further reported on 11 July, the cabinet duly noted the mayor’s appointments and made the necessary constitutional changes.
Seven members of the TVCA overview and scrutiny committee (OSC) then stepped in and requested that the cabinet’s AGM decisions be called in for review, complaining that they were unconstitutional and potentially unlawful.
Rejecting the OSC request, Grime writes: “The call-in does not disclose a valid basis for the matter to be considered by the OSC as the call-in is requesting the cabinet to take decisions which would not be lawful under the overriding legal framework (regardless of the constitution).
“The decisions taken by cabinet and those of the mayor in relation to appointments (which were then noted by cabinet) were lawful and therefore the call-in does not provide a reasonable or valid basis on which to take to take the decisions to the authority’s OSC.
“This is because the function of appointing to the board and to the chair of the board of the mayoral development corporation[s] are those which are only exercisable by the mayor of the authority, regardless of what was previously stated in the authority’s constitution.”
Unanimous vote
The OSC members also complained at the way changes to the TVCA and development corporation constitutions were made without a unanimous cabinet vote. Grime replies that this conflates two issues – the TVCA constitution, which required a unanimous vote for changes, and the development corporation constitutions which did not.
“In any case,” he adds, “on the basis of the recording of the meeting, although there was no show of hands, the mayor asked ‘are people happy to agree the recommendations?’ None of the members expressed that they were not happy to agree the recommendations, and is that respect, notwithstanding that it was not stated within the papers that the items which made changes to the authority’s constitution required a unanimous vote, a unanimous vote did take place.”
Grime also writes that the decisions to appoint the development board and chairs “were not key decisions.”
What a shambles – again
We now know, by TVCA’s own admission, that the constitution under which it has been operating for the past eight years, ever since it was established in 2017, has been unlawful in at least this one important respect. It has gone through 13 previous revisions in that time and no one has apparently noticed until now. Funnily enough, 27 June was just the time when Houchen needed power to appoint his own nominees as development corporation chairs without having to worry about getting cabinet approval.
If that does not merit scrutiny it is hard to know what does.
This shambles follows on the heels of that surrounding the appointment of a new chief executive at South Tees Development Corporation, as reported by North East Bylines on 16 June. What is more, North East Bylines has been reporting on the struggle to scrutinise Houchen for more than two years.
TVCA has been receiving support and challenge from outside experts ever since the Tees Valley Review reported last year, recently reaffirmed following the best value notice served on it by the government in April. Nothing seems to make any difference.
