Troubled Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) has made positive improvements but needs to continue doing so with “vigour and pace” to ensure “visible and impactful outcomes” according to its draft annual governance statement (AGS) for 2025/26.
The past year has been perhaps the most turbulent so far for TVCA as it has struggled to implement an organisational improvement plan (OIP), overseen by an independent advisory board (IAB) in an attempt, unsuccessful so far, to extract itself from a best value notice (BVN) imposed by the government following the highly critical, independent Tees Valley Review and a statutory letter from its external auditors, EY, calling on it to strengthen its finance team, ensure statutory public inspection requirements of its accounts are met and set out a clear, credible timetable for producing its 2024/25 accounts.
In the process, TVCA lost all three of its statutory (legally required) officers – its chief executive through redundancy in early 2025 and it monitoring (legal) officer and executive director of finance and resources abruptly last summer. A new chief executive has been appointed but an interim monitoring officer departed in January to be followed by another interim replacement, and the new director of finance is also temporary. Both need replacing, but the TVCA cabinet was told at its last meeting in April that there were so far no suitable candidates.
Labour of Hercules
After the evidently Herculean work that the new chief executive and interim top team have done since last summer to clear up the TVCA ‘s Augean stables, the draft AGS warns there are still significant weaknesses:
“The system of governance (including the system of internal control) can provide only reasonable, and not absolute, assurance that assets are safeguarded, transactions are authorised and properly recorded, material errors or irregularities are either prevented or would be detected within a timely period; value for money is being secured; and that significant risks impacting on the achievement of our objectives have been mitigated.”
Self-eulogy
In a report to the TVCA audit and governance committee, the interim monitoring officer, Jeanette McGarry, gives herself and her colleagues a pat on the back:
“The new dynamic leadership team includes officers with considerable external experience in senior roles, complemented by the promotion of existing TVCA employees with deep and extensive internal knowledge of the organisation. There is real energy, commitment and passion in this new leadership team to ensure TVCA succeeds.
“Integral to implementation of the organisational improvement plan is self-awareness. The combined authority has a clear understanding of the scale and nature of the challenges, and the chief executive and the new leadership team are visibly committed to driving progress. The three statutory officers (The Golden Triangle) meet every week to discuss risks, legal, governance and financial matters and to agree clear solutions.”
The report concludes: “There is a recognition from TVCA that there is a need to ensure the improvements made to date continue and are embedded. The overarching view is that there has been a positive improvement trajectory, but this needs to continue with vigour and pace to ensure visible and impactful outcomes. The chief executive and leadership team are wholly committed to continuing to build upon the work to date and striving for organisational excellence.”
There is no mention in this encomium of the Mayor, Lord Ben Houchen, or the other political leaders, though McGarry does include a quote from the chair of the independent advisory board, Rob Whiteman, in the draft AGS:
“…we find genuine intent from the political and officer leadership, with progress being made. Our judgement is that in time further improvement will occur if further time is provided to deliver the improvement plan. There is a shared cross-party endeavour to see the area benefit from inward investment by improving governance and financial resilience”.
Comment
Let us hope this does not prove an unwise hostage to fortune.
