Agenda and draft minutes

The Lord Mayor welcomed Councillors, officer and members of the press and public.

He made the following statement:

“The report for this evening’s meeting has been published at short notice and has not been open for inspection by members of the public for at least five clear days prior to the meeting.

In my opinion, there are special circumstances as to why the item should be considered at this meeting as a matter of urgency.

At the Extraordinary Council meeting held on 9 January 2025, we received an urgent report concerning the Council’s proposed response to the Minister of State concerning the English Devolution White paper. Members will recall that Council resolved on that occasion to support the submission of a Letter of Intent to government by 10 January 2025 indicating Exeter City Council’s opposition to any future proposal for one unitary council for Devon and expressed Exeter’s intention to submit interim plans for unitary status for Exeter once the invitation had been received from government. The resolution was unanimously supported by Members and the letter of intent was duly submitted.

Following the Extraordinary meeting of Council, the Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution, sent a letter dated 5 February 2025 to the Leaders of two-tier and unitary councils in Devon - formally inviting proposals for local government reorganisation. In that letter, the Minister of State required local authorities to submit an interim plan on or before 21 March 2025 with a full proposal to be submitted by 28 November 2025.

The time between receipt of the letter dated 5 February 2025 and the requirement to submit an interim plan on or before 21 March 2025 is extremely short and substantial efforts have been made to put the interim submission before you in advance of the submission date.

Despite the interim proposals not being published with five clear days’ notice, I consider that there are special circumstances to justify proceeding to consider the report and proposals this evening.

Those reasons are that there was a short period of time between the invitation from the Minister of State to submit interim proposals and the deadline by which those interim proposals have to be submitted to the Minister.

If the interim proposals are not issued to the Minister of State by Friday 21 March, then the Council’s position will be compromised. The interim proposals and the requirement to submit them to the Minister of State within a short timescale means that the issues need to be considered and determined by this Council as a matter of urgency and cannot be delayed. We will therefore proceed to consider the report and the interim proposals for submission to the Minister of State.”

Councillors are reminded of the need to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests that relate to business on the agenda and which have not already been included in the register of interests, before any discussion takes place on the item. Unless the interest is sensitive, you must also disclose the nature of the interest. In accordance with the Council's Code of Conduct, you must then leave the room and must not participate in any further discussion of the item. Councillors requiring clarification should seek the advice of the Monitoring Officer prior to the day of the meeting.

No declarations of disclosable pecuniary interest were made.

To consider the report of the Chief Executive as a matter of urgency.

The Leader of the Council moved and read out the recommendations set out in the report as follows:

1) That Council approves the interim submission for local government reorganisation at Appendix A.

2) That Council supports the proposal to engage with a range of stakeholders, including Exeter’s residents, residents in surrounding areas, businesses, key partners, other councils in Devon, in the development of a final business case for local government reorganisation due to be submitted in November 2025.

Councillor Wright seconded the recommendations.

The Chief Executive introduced the report making the following statement:

“Lord Mayor, in his letter of the fifth of February, the Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution invited Leaders of councils in two-tier areas to submit proposals for a single tier of local government. The letter asked for interim submissions to be sent to the government by the 21^st of March, with a full business case submitted by the 28^th of November. On the ninth of February, this Council agreed the indicate to the minister that we intend to make a submission seeking unitary status and we are therefore here this evening to ask members to approve this Council’s submission ahead of tomorrow’s deadline.

Officers believe that there is a compelling case for establishing a unitary authority for the historic city of Exeter and the surrounding area and that our submission will give assurance to members this evening as well as the government that we have a clear approach and methodology on which to build this case by the end of November.

In our submission Lord Mayor, we have considered the criteria set out by government along with key principles on which we will build our case, these include:

•         Growth, Transport and Connectivity

•         Ensuring an appropriate focus on both urban and rural issues in order to address inequality and local needs

•         Accessibility to public services 

•         A sense of place and community

•         A balanced population size and demographic, and finally, and of vital importance of course,

•         Financial viability and value for money for taxpayers.

The principles have been developed through an evidence-led approach and have been used to assess initial options for local government reorganisation.

Because of our commitment to be led by evidence, Lord Mayor, our interim submission does not include an arbitrary map which identifies the boundaries for the proposed new council. This would not have been done with any robustness in the five weeks that we have had to develop our submission. We also have not been able to put forward a structure for the rest of the county as we have not been included in the plans developed by the remaining seven Devon district councils and therefore we do not feel that it is appropriate for us to suggest a structure that covers their area without their input.

We will work, using the criteria set for us and the principles set out to develop proposals for the geographic area once we have consulted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.