Scrutiny Committee - Friday 21 March 2025, 10:30am - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Scrutiny Committee
Friday, 21st March 2025 at 10:30am

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Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)

1 Apologies for Absence

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Ms. Katie Wright, Scrutiny Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

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3 Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

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4 Minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2025

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Item 4 - Minutes (24.1.25)

Cllr Dave Merrett
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Mr Khaled Berroum (Scrutiny Officer)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Matt Edwards
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)

5 Supporting Business and Growing the economy

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Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Bob Felstead
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Matt Edwards
Cllr Bob Felstead
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Matt Edwards
Cllr Bob Felstead
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
David Jenkins
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
David Jenkins
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Bob Felstead
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Ralph Berry
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Geraldine Carter
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Geraldine Carter
Cllr Ralph Berry
David Jenkins
Cllr Ralph Berry
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Cllr Ralph Berry
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Ralph Berry
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Richard Forster
Cllr Betty Rhodes
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Cllr Richard Forster
Cllr Betty Rhodes
Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Helen Brundell
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Kate Haigh
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Dave Merrett
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
David Jenkins
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Bob Felstead
Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)

6 Work Programme and Members Updates

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Cllr Betty Rhodes
Geraldine Carter
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Bob Felstead
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Dave Merrett
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Geraldine Carter
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)
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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:00:00

We are here today. We're going to concentrate on

Skills growth and how we can make West Yorkshire the place

to attract business to and

What needs to be put in place and whether or not we've got the right people around the table

They can actually make decisions and that we're getting the right level of funding that's available nationally

But as no doubt our business representatives will point out

that a lot of the information they get on funding comes from their accountants and their firms and various other locations.

So it's not just down to WICA, there's other people, other major players in terms of investment strategy.

So can I just ask our guests if they could just briefly introduce themselves. So can we start the show up please?

Yeah, I'm good.

I'm not sure.

Sorry.

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:00:54

Good morning, I'm Michelle Burton.

I'm head of employment and skills at the Climate Authority.

Thank you.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:00

Good morning.

I'm Felix Kumeyaapofu.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:01:05

I am director here.

It's not me.

I'm director of the Climate Authority

responsible for inclusive economy, skills, and culture.

Councilor Lewis is in the building.

He's just had to take an emergency call.

who will come in very shortly.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:22

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:01:25

Hi, I'm Martin Hathaway and I'm the Managing Director

of Mid -Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce

and we cover Cordell Coakley's and Wakefield areas.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:31

Good morning, I'm Barney Miner.

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:01:34

I'm the Development Manager

for the Federation of Small Businesses in West Yorkshire.

We're a UK -wide membership organization

supporting, would you believe, small businesses.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:43

Sarah Biles, Head of Business here

Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:01:46

at the West Yorkshire Climate Authority.

Welcome and you can see the names of the elected members as we go

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:52

around. We'll get them to introduce themselves when they're asking a question.

So let's go through the agenda to begin with. Apologies for absence.

1 Apologies for Absence

Apologies for being received from Councillor Brantree with Crowsland

Ms. Katie Wright, Scrutiny Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:06

-Franzma substituting, Councillor Marchington with John Lawson substituting and just to let Councillor Bairns step down until Helen Brunnell is attended.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:02:13

Yeah, right. So can I thank Councillor Lawson, Councillor Fransmier and Councillor Brundell for stepping in today to be substituting.

But I would also like to put on record my thanks to Councillor Barnes for the work that he did on scrutiny and generally within the Combined Authority.

He will, from my personal point of view, he will be missed, particularly on his analysis of the budget and holding officers to account.

But he contributed a lot to this and he will be missed. So I just wanted that formally put on in the minutes.

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

So, right, if we can now move on to any declarations. Any pecuniary declarations? No.

3 Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

any exclusionary since it's clear the public there's nothing nothing in

private the the the laugh about that is I asked for two papers that went to the

combined authority on the what the two strategies again the depot strategy and

we went to loud access scrutiny has not been allowed access to the papers so

So that was why there was the laugh about it.

Right, the minutes of the meeting held

4 Minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2025

on the 24th of January, are they a true record?

Any matters arising that they would like to raise?

Yes, you have kinds of, yeah.

On the recommendations at the end of the paper,

the small four, to set up a bus review working group,

Cllr Dave Merrett - 0:03:52

I just wondered what's happening on that, thank you.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:03:58

Mr Khaled Berroum (Scrutiny Officer) - 0:04:01

Callad? We've gathered the members and they're progressing their first round of meetings.

Councillor Edwards chairs it so he can give you an update later on.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:04:14

Matt Edwards - 0:04:19

I mean, I said to, in case of trying to get the meeting started, get the meetings arranged,

you'll be hit notice of that, hopefully next week or so, depending on offices available

listening.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:04:29

Right, so that's item four.

5 Supporting Business and Growing the economy

Item five, we've got three papers before us.

The local growth plan, the business support review and the school system review.

All three of these papers have been through the fuel combined authority and also some

of the other themed committees within WICA as well.

So they have had some discussion on them but a pretty high level if the truth be told.

So let's look at, we'll start off by looking at the growth plan.

Do you want to introduce yourself?

I mean most people probably know who Councillor Lewis is, but formally we will welcome you.

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:05:20

Do you want to introduce yourself Councillor Lewis?

Thank you chair, Councillor James Lewis.

I'm leader of League City Council, but I'm also chair of the economy committee here because everybody needs a hobby.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:05:29

That's usually supporting Legion of the United, isn't it?

Right so local growth plan right anybody any particular issues to it that they

would like to question yes Councillor Felstead first of all. Yeah more several

issues with it so I'm just wondering how local growth plans align to local plans

particularly given they're all going through regulation 19 at the minute and

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:05:56

I'm looking at the map on page 9 some of the glaring errors on there are that

there's principle times not linked with any connectivity at all so that's my

first issue. So does the strategy align with local plans?

Just let me move down. So the second area is bullet point three point seven which are the economic indicators and I'm just wondering whether that

includes businesses that are independent of the combined authority and then the

big one is digital technology and given the situation we find ourselves in at the

minute with lack of educational skills across the region how is that going to

align to the actual strategy because this is where the emphasis is to be on

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:06:56

growth in high -tech industries. Felix are you going to delegate to

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:06:57

one of your

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:05

team right the second question was we're actually producing an indicator

Matt Edwards - 0:07:13

dashboard to measure the success of the local growth plan now obviously the

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:07:16

combined authority will have will be in contact with places like chambers of

commerce and blah blah blah but there's going to be a lot of businesses that

outside of that group. So how do we measure what they're doing?

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:31

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:07:35

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:38

There's a lot of emphasis throughout the whole report on digital skills obviously

Matt Edwards - 0:07:44

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:07:47

medical tech and things like that but clearly across the region we've got a

Shortage of the skilled workers needed for these jobs and it's absolutely enormous. So I'm wondering how we're gonna get

those people into

One of the mayor's promises which is well paid highly skilled dah de dah employment

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:08:06

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:08:07

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:08:09

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:08:12

Thank you, I will start with the first one alignment with local plans

So at a high level

the local growth plan is supposed to align

with the five local plans

that our five local authorities produce.

But the reality is each local authority produces

its local plan at a different time.

The timings are not aligned.

So one local authority might produce theirs,

I don't know, three years ago.

Another one might be underway now.

or another one might not start there for a few more years.

So the reality is that we are always realigning things

as we're going along.

It's not possible.

It's not being possible for everybody

to start at the same time.

And for us to have a local growth plan,

then everybody produces their local plan

to align with that.

In that way, the timing's in real.

It just doesn't work.

The second point is that even though at a high level,

there is alignment strategically.

They are trying to do different things.

So the local plans in local authorities

are about designating parcels of land for different uses

in response to need and opportunity

at a particular point in time with a lot of legal and public

inquiries, et cetera.

So trying to do different things.

The local growth plan is about how

How do we grow the economy?

And that will include how we use land,

but that is not all it does.

It's about, as you said, skills, and it's

about different sectors, and it's

about the competence of our infrastructure, investment,

connectivity, all of that.

So yes, there is an alignment at a high level,

but they're trying to do different things.

They're serving different, if related, purposes.

On the business membership, if I've

understood the question you were asking, Councillor Filstead,

even when we work, and we always work very closely

with Martin and Barney and other partners,

is when if we are, say, tasking or contracting or enabling

our business representative bodies to work with us

on a particular thing, we always make sure

that that is not exclusive to their membership.

So it might be the body that might have the responsibility

to make X happen, engage with businesses on export

or whatever, but we always make sure

that that is not exclusive to their membership.

And I'll let Martin and Bernie say a bit more about that

if you want.

And on the digital and tech, you are absolutely right.

West Yorkshire, like a few other areas,

especially in the north, has a higher than average

proportion of our workforce with no or very low levels

of qualifications and not enough of our workforce

with what we call high level qualifications, you know,

university and above, equivalent and above.

That is fact and that was borne out in the evidence

that we put out in the local growth plan.

But that fact is why the actions that we've then set out

in the local growth plan were arrived at.

So since then, as you know, we've commissioned,

we've set up with Wakefield, for example,

what we call the Future Skills Commission,

because Wakefield has almost 20 percentage points gap

in the numbers between its high level attainment

in Wakefield's working age population

compared to the national average.

It's about 10 percentage points in Bradford.

It's about three or four in Kirklees and Huddersfield.

Leeds is above the average.

But Wakefield is so far behind, we had to look at that.

So one of the actions was we set up this commission.

It will report in the summer.

And we'll work to implement the recommendations.

There are many other such actions

in the local growth plan.

We've said our ambition is to bring everybody

who is able to get to a minimum of level

three in West Yorkshire.

And at one of your previous meetings,

one of your colleagues challenged us to say,

level three is too low.

And I said, and I feel rightly, that if we can get everybody

to level three, that would be an incredible miracle.

So let's do that and see where we go after that.

Don't know whether Bonnie and Martin my one who come in the business

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:13:26

any comments on the issue of business representation

Gonna probably do what what I tend to in a way almost answer different question, but I

Think when we talk about I mean the FSB we have three and a half thousand members in West Yorkshire

There's about hundred thousand businesses

David Jenkins - 0:13:45

So you've got to think about it.

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:13:50

And we are the largest business organization in West York.

So you've got to think, none of us speak for the majority.

And also, people join business organizations

not because they want to get involved in representational activities,

but because they want 24 -7 legal advice.

They want help with chasing bad debt.

So you've got to...

I think you've got to reframe how you think about businesses

and how you think about engaging with businesses, measuring businesses.

Business owners, 90 % of businesses are sole traders or micros.

By micros, employed 10 or fewer.

Business owners aren't organizations, they're individuals.

So there's 100 ,000 individuals and that's how you've got to start thinking about businesses.

And when you're talking about measuring businesses, when you're talking about communicating with

businesses, you've got to get into the mindset, as you do when you talk about the general

population, how do you communicate with communities? You don't go to two or three people and get

– you've talked to a community. You need to actually use many different measures, many

different methods. You've got to – and it's not easy. There's no shortcuts. And

I just think that's the point I want to make. When you talk about businesses, because

I think 50, 60 years ago, we would have had a small number

of large employers.

So you could cover up most of the employers

quite quickly in a room.

You cannot do that anymore.

60 % of people are employed by SMEs in the private sector.

And it's hard work.

But you've got to think there's no easy ways.

And I think it's really important just to state that,

just so we don't go down sort of rabbit holes that lead us

probably nowhere.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:15:36

You need to work with the businesses

that are interested in working with you.

And an awful lot of this is unfortunately irrelevant

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:15:45

to most businesses.

Not to business organizations,

but less and less people join us

because we're representing their views and their needs

in the public policy arena anymore.

And it's, I'm saying that because I see it

as Barney's job and my job to get more and more interested and we can do that

with your help by making it more interesting. I've just pressed print by

mistake James on the economy committee meeting next week and there's

hundred and something pages about that thick and I was going to bring it in.

The point being if you if you think you're gonna get individual businesses

come along to talk about that for two hours then you're mistaken so it's our

job to go out there and to speak to as many businesses we can and seek their

views and to test the market and that isn't only with members we interact with

many many thousands more than just our members it's just that those that join

us do it for different reasons of representations as as Barney described

and just a comment if you don't mind chair on the on the local growth

programs that to support feelings they're all very different and at

different stages of their lives so Wakefield is just in the process of

of coming up with a new one, of throwing the old one away

and coming up with one from scratch, which is great.

In Korda Dal, it's been going for quite some time

and is now being measured and look at the impacts of it.

So they've been going since COVID and in Kirklees,

which is the other area where it's been,

well, it's been being renewed for quite some time.

Two or three years, I'm afraid,

but they're all at very different stages

and they're all written in very different ways.

Some are written in isolation with authors.

Some are written by consultants without consulting.

The good ones are all written in consultation

with lots of people, especially in the way

that Wakefield's is currently, I have to say.

All right, thank you.

Do you want to come back?

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:17:41

David Jenkins - 0:17:42

Just one quick thing regarding local growth plans

and local plans.

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:17:46

The point I was trying to make was lots of the principal towns

that will be identified in the local growth pound

are already there, but they don't appear to be connected

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:17:59

on the actual map.

Felix?

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:18:04

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:18:06

Okay, so this famous map has, I think, done its job

because it's engendered a lot of discussion.

It's got a lot of people interested in the local growth plan and so our job is done.

It's like, you know, somebody who remained nameless got in a big number in the local

growth plan and that got a lot of news headlines.

But that was because we needed it to get the attention apart from other more serious reasons.

You are right.

The map in there is not.

So you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

We could have produced a map that

had all the towns and cities, principal towns,

in West Yorkshire on there.

And somebody else would say, you're

not making any hard choices here.

You're saying you're going to do something for everybody.

You're going to connect everybody to everything.

But if you do something that you made a few choices,

and you say, right, this is where

we're going to focus our growth.

Then legitimately, others will say, ah, but we're not on there.

You're not connecting to us.

Somehow, you've got to stick with something.

The map on there shows it follows how and where people

move from and to in West Yorkshire

and have done so for like 300 years.

It follows our principal movement patterns

across West Yorkshire.

And we are recognizing that as fact.

It doesn't mean other places don't exist or don't matter,

but this is where the bulk of our people

either live or work or go to have fun.

And because of that, this is where our transport

infrastructure has been concentrated.

Because of that, that is not only where people live,

but where the majority of our people work.

So it makes sense for us to then think about,

if we're going to think about increasing density,

where do we do that?

Do we do that out of these places

where we already have enough infrastructure we

could build on or not?

So the decision on that map is to say

we're going to focus our efforts on density along those three

corridors, because that is where we already

have something to build on.

It's not to the exclusion of everything else.

But at some point, if you've got a marginal pound,

you have to make a decision where you're going to spend it.

So the decision is we're going to focus along those corridors when it comes to housing and transport infrastructure and

Employment opportunity etc. Of course, there are other things we're doing in other places that are not on there

Langford business park is not along that corridor doesn't mean we're not going to invest in it

We've got an active investment plan for that. Likewise Keith Lee. We have an active plan to invest there

But this just shows the concentration where our growth corridor opportunities are.

One thing we've lacked in West Yorkshire is economic density when it comes to business

and employment and we try to respond to that.

But we're working along the well -grained path that we've got in terms of where infrastructure

lies.

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:21:25

Thank you, Chair.

Just very quickly on the map, which does provoke debate.

Felix is correct about that.

Like all the elected members sat around the table,

I represent the ward, which is Kippox and Methly.

I can sit here if you like, and I'll outdo anybody

on who represents the most forgotten, marginalized,

ignored, stuck on the edge of everywhere ward in West

Yorkshire.

But fundamentally, which isn't either in a shaded area

or with a dotted line across it, I mean,

fundamentally, we could get a spray can out

spray all of West Yorkshire, draw lines of everywhere. No one would understand what it is,

but everybody at least feel that that bit West Yorkshire has something there.

I mean, the reality is like Felix says, you know, we know that the, what holds back the economy in West Yorkshire is poor productivity.

How do you improve productivity? It's more density of housing, businesses and transport infrastructure.

We also know in West Yorkshire because all of us at some point may have sat on a planning committee

or will have certainly sat in a full council debate about adopting a local development.

framework and we will know that not everywhere in West Yorkshire is suitable for high intensive

development

because at the moment the infrastructure isn't there and there's a debate

I'm sure when you have the Transport Committee and if you've not had them in before yet, you know

You can go over like the decades of we need to catch up on under investment in transport

So the purpose of this is is like Felix said is to try and get us to a position where we're recognizing

Where we're recognizing

Where we are going to deliver like the intensive growth in the years ahead.

And that's not to say on all the initiatives coming out of this building like Bus Franchising,

which will touch every community in West Yorkshire, that it's not worth trying to connect people into.

It is about recognising that not the entire, you know, not the entire county from Silsdon to South Kirby

is going to be appropriate for high intensive development that we need to improve the productivity of the county.

and this recognises some of that in it.

So I know not everywhere,

not everywhere is coloured in on the map,

but it is about recognising, like I say,

some of the priority corridors and the priority

and some of the priority areas.

But as Felix has said, some of it as well

is around looking on, you know,

if you start looking on some of the sectoral stuff,

there'll be areas that are,

I'm not seeing intrinsic growth anyway,

you know, I think about Production Park in Wakefield,

for example

The

Doing that but it is an attempt like I say to look about work bring together the three things to transport business growth and

the physical development of

Of property both housing commercial industrial and transport

Guys

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:24:12

As you know business organization

I actually I don't want to get involved in

Whether the spray cans go in the right places, because I can see I might get in trouble there.

But the approach is right.

One of the frustrations I have, and Martin hopefully would back me up on this, is that

often we talk to local authorities or other bodies, and they only think within their boundaries.

And businesses don't act within boundaries.

And just because a business is small doesn't mean it's a local business.

It could be an international business.

I've even got members who sell stuff to Manchester.

It's outrageous.

So the approach is really right because businesses are not constrained by the administrative

boundaries that you, by design, are always going to be.

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:25:02

Yes, just on this, the first question I wanted to ask was about being described as a centre

of Excellence, West Yorkshire being described as a centre of excellence, it's difficult

to see how a whole of an area like that could be described as a centre. And how do you think

a USP, as it were, that competes with the other people who will also be describing their

mayor authorities as centres of excellence, presumably, as opposed to Cambridge and Oxford

Triangle which is genuinely a center of excellence in all terms and the second point

Yeah, I want to bring up was about transport

I mean we've all looked at the map and I'm pleased to see that my area is not covered by a color

But it historically of course linked to the northwest

I mean there's a route through from my colleague will tell me some wraps

Well, London, England and Scottish up to Glasgow and the northwest as opposed to concentrating

on the northeast and of course our neighbours in Skipton have aspirations to reconnect to

more of east Lancashire and I wonder whether there is an opportunity there that should

be included or should we just concentrate on linking to Manchester and Sheffield and

so forth.

I mean, I don't, there has merits,

and that you can argue.

The third area I wanted to consider

was the education side of it,

and I live in a notoriously poorly educated area.

And speaking to our leader and discussing it with her,

the problem with the post 16 education

is the pre 16 education,

which isn't up to standard as we know many schools and two of the major grammar schools in my area

have got very poor reports and

And I wonder whether because this is outside our control

Because these are academies or etc. That is an area that's going wanting and I'd be very keen to hear your comments on that

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:27:19

Thank you, I think

I'm sorry counselor. I don't know where you ward is

But I think there's a number of things.

I think, first of all, the English Devolution White

paper, which was published just before Christmas,

sets out the ambition to have mayors and combined authorities

everywhere.

And I think once you have a much clearer system of governance

in England, then it'll make some of those cross boundary

links where those strong economic ties exist much, much

easier.

I think it comes back to the point

that Barney makes, a lot of businesses

don't work on local authority boundaries.

I was at the launch of the White Rose Agreement,

where the three mayors made the agreement

about how we're going to work together.

The mayor of South Yorkshire announced

that Yorkshire's part of this Yorkshire

is going to get bigger, which I don't

whether that means we're going to.

I'm not quite sure how that works.

I do think it is around that outward looking view that

clearly where there are strong economic ties.

Again, my ward's right on the eastern side of West Yorkshire.

Loads of people in my ward work in York and North Yorkshire.

Clearly, I'm clearly part of this

is around looking about how we can strengthen those ties

through it.

I won't get into how we completely

reconstruct the schools system in this country.

But I do think, again, some of the

It is something that, it is something that around what, when we actually start having a proper skills plan for West Yorkshire, we start delivering that.

Then we can be, you know, moving on to the single settlement we'll have fairly soon, then we'll at least have the resources to address what we need to do in West Yorkshire.

I'm sure officers might want to give a little bit more detail on that, but that's just my thoughts on that.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:29:17

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Lewis.

I'll bring my colleague Sarah in to just say a little bit

on the fine points of Innovation Center

of Excellence in a minute.

But I'm really pleased you picked that out.

Some of these things we write in these documents, you know,

you're never sure who's going to read it

and what they're going to make of it.

So I'm really happy that you got to that point

and you picked that out.

As Councilor Lewis said, we for a long time have had a deficit at least in our productivity.

And you don't need to be a Nobel Prize winning economist to know that to increase prosperity,

the surest way economists have found is

to increase productivity.

And to increase productivity, we need to be more innovative.

We need to be more innovative, and it's not just

about doing new things, just doing what we do,

what we have to do better, find new, different, better ways

to do what we have to do on top of new products and all of that.

So in writing the local grid plan, it was clear to us that we need to have a better

grip of what innovation means and how we enable that across this patch.

So the concept of our Innovation Center of Excellence, at the time we wrote it, was simply

a concept, it was an aspiration that we want West Yorkshire to be known as the place where,

if you've got a good idea for how to do something,

you will be supported to develop that idea

and if it can be commercialized,

you will get the support you need to commercialize it.

And we will work with you, whoever you are,

wherever you base within West Yorkshire.

So to make all of West Yorkshire the place,

the best place to commercialize great ideas.

Now, once you begin to dig into that,

there are all sorts of specific things that we have to do.

What does center mean?

Is it a building?

Is it virtual?

Is it a set of buildings?

Is it a group of people?

All of that is to be decided.

And Sarah is working with the team

through a lot of detail on that.

But the aspiration is that we've got to be the place.

And we might fail, that's great.

But if we fail to get here and we get there,

I think I can sleep a bit more at night.

So we are aspiration is to be the best place if you've got a good idea to get that idea

From your brain onto wherever it needs to be to be commercialized to create prosperity to increase

Productivity and to create prosperity. That's what that's what we're working on

And so I do want to say anything more about that before I try to answer any of that question

Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:32:19

Just to add I mean that aspiration is absolutely right and it's a big aspiration

but we have already got some fantastic assets in West Yorkshire, seven universities, some

great businesses doing amazing things, some fantastic talent across the region, and connecting

those more effectively together to do more, to be better. We'll have huge impetus, but

also using this Centre of Excellence as an identity, as a brand, as something to shout

about for West Yorkshire and raise our profile, because we're not great about shouting how

great we are, how great the businesses we've got, how great the universities are, how great

the assets are. So some of this is just about joining the dots together and really, really

of promoting West Yorkshire as an amazing place, which is.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:32:55

On the transport bit, I'm sure when you get the transport

colleagues in, they can sort of tell you

a bit more about connection to the Northwest, Northeast,

and others.

But Council Lewis mentioned the White Rose Agreement.

And one of the things that pulled out in the White Rose

Agreement was transport connectivity, as we would

expect.

I think Lord Blunkett is being brought on board

to lead some work to help us think about this.

So one of the key work streams that we've already

started thinking about and doing some work on,

and hopefully we can bring it through

in some of the early phases of bus franchising,

is the cross -boundary challenge.

So if you live on the boundary of West Yorkshire,

where you probably tend to work across that boundary

into South Yorkshire, it's a different transport entities

altogether.

all of a sudden you're paying more money

just because your pass is only valid for West Yorkshire

and not for South Yorkshire.

It doesn't really make sense.

So mayors are committed to make sure

that cross boundary challenge can be overcome

and colleagues are already working on that.

I'll bring Michelle in on the pre and post 16 bit.

The only thing I'll say is we are engaged with government

through the devo process on what

What post 16 role the combined authority should have?

Views are mixed, but we're working on that.

And I don't know whether we'll see them on here.

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:34:28

Thanks, Felix.

Yeah, it's a really good question.

I think what you got across really well

and how you described that was the interdependencies

between different parts of the system.

So pressure in post 16 and then, of course,

in adult skills, which is a devolved part of the system,

is contributed to by issues at a younger age,

as well as in the adult population.

So I think that's a point well made.

The complexity of the education,

employment and skills system is well known

and fully acknowledged.

And within that, the devolved parts of the system,

as you will know, are around adult skills particularly,

so non -apprenticeship adult provision.

And it is increasingly clear that there needs to be some kind of regional role around at a younger age

in order to make sure that not only have we got the quality, but also the sufficient and appropriate places at a younger age.

and so the local growth plan does start looking at the importance of West

Yorkshire being a region of learning and creativity which is about that

performance appropriateness at all ages and so from earlier in

school age whereas you're absolutely right that the direct leavers at a

regional level come in at 19 actually that you know you're picking up issues

from younger in the system.

you

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:38:29

I'll make a start.

So I think, noting the number of contributes on the committee,

I'll try and be really quick.

So clearly we're talking about the economy function

of combined authority.

But ultimately, all the plans are

owned by the mayor and the combined authority.

And that's what drives forward.

You're absolutely right.

They are really interlinked.

And it is a combined authority that does.

It's a combined authority in the mayor

and delivering on Tracy's mayoral pledges

that brings all that together.

Like I say, I won't get too much into transport.

I've done the transport job before.

Somebody else does it now.

I won't go back over old ground.

But that's probably one, but it is that one around

where, like I say, that's the ultimate thing.

And it is the, you know, and it is recognizing

the link between all of them.

In terms of skills, you're right.

I mean, having the dissolved skills budget

meant we were able to step in very quickly

and try and resolve the shortage of bus drivers.

So use the skills work of the combined authorities

to support the transport work,

like I say, very quickly stepping in.

There are other areas, I mean, you're right as well,

local authority, I mean, these councils,

probably the biggest employer in,

biggest single employer in Leeds,

that's a huge footprint in the city

in terms of number of people employed,

and again, there's a lot of work we do as an organization

on using our apprenticeship levy with our existing workforce

and picking up some of the areas of shortage as well.

And that's something that recognizing where we need to go.

Like if we want to deliver some of the things we want to deliver,

we will need more transport planners, more town planners,

and making sure we've got that pipeline of skills there.

So I'll finish there, Chair.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:40:19

I'm happy to hand over the skills bits to Michelle.

of the confederacies really picked up the other points.

I think on the synergy bit, I'll just reassure you

that we are aware of it.

And organizations like ours cannot exist,

it seems sadly, without several strategies and plans.

And it's just so we understand.

but we fully are aware of the links between them.

So a couple of years ago,

all the leaders and the mayor signed

the West Yorkshire plan, which is our headline,

very, very high level document

that sets out the five missions, et cetera.

And beneath that is the local growth plan,

which sets out how we're gonna grow the economy.

And everything else takes its leaf from that.

So the local transport plan that is currently being written

takes its leaf from the local growth plan.

The climate and environment plan,

absolutely linked to that.

Business decarbonization within that sits with Sarah,

for example.

So we absolutely on that.

We've got housing retrofit,

all the skills implications on that Michelle is in charge of

so it's absolutely linked to that.

Mass transit, we've just got good perspectives out.

Looking at supply chain, looking at skills,

looking at the needs that the sector will have to rise to the challenge. My colleagues here wrote

that the good the growth perspective so we are linking and aligning these things as much as it's

possible to do you know within our remit. I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that.

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:42:03

Well only very briefly that you're quite right that what's in the local growth plan in regards

skills is fairly high level isn't it and and and I would have and and it would be

I would like to draw your attention to the annual report that we will be

publishing on adult skills funding that shows how developed adult skills funding

is being used to address different economic and social priorities so how

the funding is being targeted at people and communities in the greatest

need but also how it's being used to address green skills, digital skills which was mentioned

earlier and other sort of key areas of the economy.

But yeah, I mean you're right, in the local growth planet it's at a fairly high level

but there are accompanying publications which as Felix has described, dock into that which

do provide that level of detail which I think we'd be really happy to send on to you when

they come up.

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:43:10

It's just I think it's important to remember that most training happens in organizations,

not just businesses.

It's a large amount of money and it's an awful lot of what we do and our educational system

is vitally important, but an awful lot of this happens outside of that system.

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:43:30

I said that very quickly. I think it's really important that when we talk about skills we

don't mix up skills and qualifications. We're clear about what it is we mean. That's what

I need to say on that I think.

you

Geraldine Carter - 0:44:55

problem with your map? I don't mind you using a map of any description but I do wish it

was accurate and geographically it is so wrong. It's unbelievable from a position of West

Yorkshire to Greater Manchester. You said that 300 years ago this is how people got

from A to B and all you've done is follow the line of the map. Well unless you were

in Roman times on the Roman road it was actually impossible for you to get from Halifax to

Manchester on the line that you've droned and it is even more impossible at this current moment in time

the likewise the same one from Huddersfield to

Manchester and I do feel that if we're going to use a map and we're going to put some arrows on it

We should make it geographically correct and what is distinctly missing off here from a transport perspective

Of course is the m62 just that road not exist

Is that road not part of the biggest problem that we've got in West, Georgia?

which is getting from one site to the other, and the M62.

I just do not understand why you can put something on a piece of paper that is completely meaningless.

There ain't a road from Halifax to Manchester, geographically, where you put it.

So nobody can go that way. There's nothing to take you that way.

There is no rail network shown on here to get anywhere.

Don't I don't mind. I don't mind you doing something

But I do wish that it was correct because otherwise the rest of the document becomes meaningless

You can't talk about education and skills and accessing and transport and everything else

When the when the map that you're showing and the lines that you're showing and not in the right places

I'm sorry. I know I'm an old bag at times, but I really do feel that this is it is

I don't mind what you do strategically to show whatever, but please let's have it correct.

I've lived on that Yorkshire Lancashire border now for 74 years of my life, which is all of it.

And this, I don't even understand it. It isn't correct.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:47:10

Yes, and I'm absolutely loving this.

So thank you very much.

The map has definitely done its job.

I think where we have a difference of opinion,

if I could respectfully add, is those black dots on the map

are not intended to represent a particular train line

or a road.

It's just an indication that there

is a connection between this point and that point.

It's not a map that shows all the roads in West Yorkshire.

It would have a different heading.

It's not a map that shows the train lines or the Roman roads.

It would have a different heading.

It's simply saying there are destinations

between these areas that matter to us.

So an iteration of this right now has all our key sites.

It's not meant, it's an illustration

of where we're looking to put.

That's why the colors in there begin to sort of change or go

light as you go along.

It's just to denote intensity.

It's not meant to be an accurate road or rail or footpath

representation of where everybody is going.

It's simply an illustration based on where our places are

and where our people move to and from.

That's all it is.

It does not, it does not mean that the facts in there

about people not having the right level of qualifications

or jobs, the underemployment or all those issues

are wrong simply because we have a difference of opinion

about what a map is denoting.

If we wanted to show you a map

about where the train stations are,

we could have done that.

That's not what we're trying to put across.

You

Geraldine Carter - 0:49:35

Because the biggest problem is with the map being wrong and not correct is the fact that I'm representing

Calderdale here

All the rural areas around Calderdale to the western side

Do not show any connectivity whatsoever

Now that is the issue if you're wanting us to have connectivity of the area to get to

Education skills and everything else then there's that has got to be reflected somewhere in the map

I mean, you know if you live in Tomoden, it's god help you can't go anywhere if you live in Silsdon

If you live in South Kirby

We've got to let people know that we are trying to work for them and trying to connect them

We know Leeds is the center of the universe as far as the as far as the combined authority is concerned and everything from

Gross from that hope we are aware of that and we are aware of the reasons why?

But as he's been said on on numerous numerous occasions

And I said to the mayor as well if you're wanting to improve the skills on the education of young people

You've got to give them some incentive to get from where they are to where you want

need them to go because otherwise there's no incentive at all because they can't get

anywhere because the transport is not reflected and the education on this map and I think

that's the problem for me.

A strategic map should include other things.

you

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:51:59

Yeah, my father was born in Tomborden, so.

Actually you can get used to not be able to get to Burmley directly.

actually got quite dramatically improved transport connections in recent times, but there we

go.

I'm wanting to focus on what I would call inclusive growth because we've been, the test

for me is I get all the bit about centres of excellence and high tech

David Jenkins - 0:52:23

innovation and

there is a concern about the university sector at the moment but I'm sure you're looking

into that.

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:52:28

But I'm looking at no one left out and I'm looking at the investment that's needed to

get communities back into economic activity engagement

with the labor market.

And they're not all geographically remote at all.

I give you Manningham, Beeston, Hill, Thornton Lodge,

Givesbury Mall, all these places I've worked, by the way.

But there we go.

And I'm concerned about how we create

the link with what you're calling the health and skills

agenda, because there is some substantial work doing there.

And it does link to education, because I work alongside an academy at the moment.

We've got a long impact of COVID, and there's various reports come out in the last week

about education, absence engagement, and outcomes.

And this will require, inevitably, as we ad hoc reorganize local government without a

Red Cliff Maud, you will need to have some footprint on school improvement and development

through pre -16 to 16.

David Blunkett has already flagged this up.

If I'm allowed to mention the blessed memory of Tim Brickhouse, this is what we need.

You need some equivalent of the London Challenge so that you can connect vocational pathways

with a revised curriculum.

But I'm going to make a plea for what we used to call intermediate labor markets because

some of the situations that we're working with.

I'm old enough to remember a thing called the community program.

Hanby, I have to remember that.

75 quid a week for three days work and when you got out of armley and you went down to

see Mr Berriert due to his probation office, you got three days of work at macro or whoever

it was acquiring skills, you got some dignity, you got some independence, you settled your

life down and then you were able to engage with training and move forward. And the private

sector, Henry Bootworth, biggest operators if I remember rightly, we over problematised

some of these pathways with people we need to re -engage with economic activity and make

part of our societies because we've excluded far too many of them. And it's not going to

help the whole West Yorkshire agenda if we have some great, roaring away IT successes

and all that. That's really great, but you've then got your inclusion agenda, which in terms

of health, wellbeing, poverty is expensive. It costs a lot of money. So I'm looking to

see how we can make sure in everything we do that reaches

into the areas of greatest economic distress.

We've had a terrible time in the last 14 years.

And we are for ladders.

And I believe there are some lessons from the past that

can be updated so that we move people.

We don't just sit them in rooms and talk at them.

It's about getting people a lever up

and having them show they feel part of things.

And it is about those skills because the apprenticeship agenda has been brilliantly colonized by the

articulate middle class. I've got children of an age where many of their friends have

worked out that getting a high level apprenticeship means you don't end up with a university debt.

Smart, great, get me a plumber, get me an electrician, get me a bus driver. So things

are a bit out of parlance, but the plea I've got

is to look at models of employment support

that will reach into the communities that

have been so marginalized.

Matt represents Tong.

My time in council, Tong Homewood

has been refurbished or socially programmed three times.

The poverty has not moved.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:56:12

I think you've nailed the biggest challenge for me in all of this is where do you choose

to invest the money and I'd love to have an answer and I haven't got an answer.

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:56:27

I can give you a partial answer of something you can do about that and that's look at

public procurement.

Look at the amount of money that's spent just in the public sector every year in all

of the organisations and look at social value.

look at how social value can be used to benefit local communities,

create the jobs that people in those communities can have.

And I think it's a tool that is just, it's a game changing tool for me.

And I think we need to look across the whole of the public sector and perhaps

bringing some of the private sector,

the big sort of tier one suppliers and look at how we can maximize the benefits

that to solve exactly the kind of problems that you've mentioned.

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:57:07

I think also that there's a real role for small businesses in this.

If you look at this evidence that FSB has produced in the past showing that small businesses

are more likely to employ people who otherwise wouldn't be employed.

And it's not because they've got strategies or this or that, it's because they tend to

employ people from the same communities as them.

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:57:31

And another thing I'd throw in is as well as looking at employment, actually looking

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:57:35

that's supporting entrepreneurship because,

especially across West Yorkshire,

actually we don't have enough businesses.

Wakefield in particular, there's some real issues.

Entrepreneurship.

In terms of the amount of startups we have,

and I think that's a real issue.

And the final thing I'll just throw in,

and it's actually to say,

so it's supposed to pick up something that Sarah's doing,

which is around an investment strategy.

Because actually a lot could be unlocked

if we could close some of the investment gap we have

in West Yorkshire with businesses,

which is a lot around the way,

the finance in a minute, a lot of people

are lending to people who, within,

is it 90 minutes drive, is that,

and they lend to people who look like them.

So if you're a woman running a business,

you're less likely.

If you're black, you're less likely.

And if you're in West Yorkshire, you're less likely.

So if you're a black woman in West Yorkshire,

you've got almost no chance.

So this work that Wicca's doing,

I think could be quite transformative actually if it comes through.

And if it doesn't come through, I think we've only got ourselves to blame.

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:58:40

I'm going to move on to the next question.

The Councillor Rhodes is next and then Councillor Broughton will answer that.

Thank you, Chair.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:58:50

Nice to see you, James, and keep supporting Leeds United.

I'm there all the time.

Okay, there's quite a lot being said and I'm not going to go around reinventing the wheel on it,

Cllr Richard Forster - 0:59:02

But Ralph, I have to say, I support every word you've said

about the people, the skills that's needed.

Cllr Betty Rhodes - 0:59:06

And it's all about, the document is all about,

and I support Geraldine here,

because this document is about corridors of opportunity.

That's the heading.

And in that document here,

yes, we can have connectivity links

that you've mentioned, Felix.

But along that path, I've heard here today,

and particularly from Barney, supported by Martin, is that the opportunity in terms of

building up businesses, growth through that business is going to do everything for everybody,

and in terms of how this happens and how we pull together all the partners within it is

where I believe some emphasis should be placed.

I can remember chair coming to this meeting many years ago, before we had some changes,

that one of the issues that we had a discussion paper on was to try and encourage pre -16 and post -16 into the skills system.

And I recall, and I was astounded that two officers from this authority, and forgive me if you're here,

I might have missed your names because we're so astounded back then, was the answer that

we got as members was they had, quote unquote, great difficulty getting into schools and

colleges.

And I thought, why?

Why just leave it at that?

And the other angle after asked the question why was, well, can't you find other avenues

to get into schools?

Surely that's where things are started for pre and post 16.

I have a couple of things in mind,

rather than what you've said in terms of skills

and having equal opportunity and diversity.

I didn't see much of that in here, to be honest.

I know it's a background for everybody.

But maybe I'm molding the truth as well as Geraldine

in remembering that a pout of great skills for people

who did need equality and opportunity was an organisation called Remploi.

Yes it was, it was brilliant.

And we had a great organisation doing that in Wakefield.

And we had people of various opportunity attainments,

equality of skills in terms of disability, that worked there.

They worked, they gained a wage, they had pride, they had respect.

and the government of the time stopped supporting it because most of the work through that was with a large organisation from government in actually delivering paper products on behalf of government offices.

Now I don't know where within your structure here today, and when you speak about Wakefield, both of you, I'm going to come into that in a moment, and the wider picture.

Where within this document can we see where some emphasis has been put on, not just bricks and mortar,

but we need to have something that will bring those skills back that people will have respect

and come out of there if they need to be with a skill that can earn money and go out in the larger economy.

Is that part of opportunity or not? I don't see it here today.

I think the approaches to this in terms of both yourselves, Barney and Martin, is have you approached universities going into preschool, 16 and post -16?

Because there is a big thing out there we've heard a lot about of late, of people coming out of post -16 who seem to think that the world has neglected them

and therefore their long -term future is not in terms of employment,

but the position seems to be that if the welfare state is there,

why is it neglecting me in terms of me going and getting those opportunities?

I remember as well that we had a discussion here, Chair,

and you've mentioned it about refitted properties.

I asked the question just after COVID,

and I forget which officer we had.

in terms of how many houses have we actually managed to refit.

There had been a target of way above what I was told. The target then was only

7 ,000 and the blame on that was because we don't have the skills.

Well, I'll come back to skills again. Are we going to have the skills for the future?

Where's that coming from? What opportunities are going to be for apprenticeships?

I know our council over the years and many, many years has had an apprenticeship scheme.

I had three of them at my health and social care meeting yesterday, scrutiny meeting.

Young people in apprenticeships dealing with health and social care and Ralph, you mentioned the health agenda as well.

Very important in all of this document and I was pleased that those young people wanted to see how scrutiny worked.

Where is that element of apprenticeship? I don't know what other authorities do in terms of apprenticeships.

Do you have a scheme? We have an input twice a year of roughly about 24 young people.

I'm really proud of that. I don't know what you're doing in your own local authorities.

Or is that something that WICA, through your own agenda here on skills,

and we're on about cross boundaries now.

Is that not something that should be the corridor

of opportunity as well for skills?

I also chair, I have to say this,

obviously we support all businesses.

We do our best to wait for the support

and I don't want Wakefield decried here

in any way, shape or form because I've heard it twice,

but the outcomes of what I'm going to ask here and elsewhere.

I'm sure my colleague and I will be delving a bit more into all of that.

But you know, the paper does actually say the services, the ideas around the need for

a much better, and this is a dichotomy in itself, front end.

What's a front end, please?

I'm sure we'd all like to know what a front end is.

And we'll continue to support it if we know what the front end is.

I love that expression.

I love it, Chair.

And then of course there's the other part in the report that we've got before us.

And I know this has crossed boundaries well between all of you.

It actually recognises there's a balance between local delivery and national and regional delivery.

Now that will come under the mayor's remit as well, crossing boundaries with the other mayors.

But I think we need to have that padded out of more information of what that's going to be.

I could pay for the town hall in Wakefield with strategies and promises and policies.

I could pay for the town hall and they know it.

But you know, the words are wonderful but you have to have the background and sustainability to them.

And then I understand we're doing a scope here.

Understanding the scope, again, I'm up there and I've got front end.

And then in another part of the document I've got high growth.

Now that is obviously everybody's intention to have high growth.

And we want to know in terms of the proposal and you've got the wider businesses involved

in it through your good selves and that's how it should be.

But you know, don't we need to know how we get to high growth?

It's a wonderful world and it's a great world for people that have, and they're on that ladder already.

But we're talking about those that we need to get onto that ladder.

And it's important that we have that high growth element.

And I'm going to say as well, in the document it does say about high growth.

and I'm going back to where I started.

It's got to be inclusive growth within our communities, Chair.

Lovely words again, and the ethos of it in the plan

has got to be admired.

But you know what?

All of the selected members around this table, and James knows,

and we all know it, go out there and explain this plan

to people in your community.

We do need an aid memo on this. Go out there in all your wards and explain this to your community.

Castleford, south east of the district, Wakefield all the way around.

And just say, well we've got growth plans and we've got front end.

Sorry. I think the emphasis is great.

I think the reasoning behind it is obviously in terms with the association with local plans and growth being, as Felix said, you've got different points in the year.

But surely that doesn't matter because as these are going on, don't we collectively through WICA actually look to see what's happened in the local plans that might be two years over there or three years over there

that can put out there an example of what we can do, even if they are lagging behind,

they've got to have a part to play.

And that disparity is never going to change for a long, long time.

And lastly, Chair, sorry, it's something else that I know that's going to happen,

and we all know that's going to happen.

We've got the bus franchise system.

Obviously, I've spoken for many years,

as my late husband Keith used to sit on the committee with James, about quality contracts.

We have words in here about all of us, everybody around the table, connectivity.

Connectivity for jobs, for shift workers.

As the Chair said, we need to have that message going round and out there between the mayors,

the connectivity across the branches, across the wards, across different areas that we can say to people,

yes, we know you work nights, yes, we know it's bad at night, I'm trying to get home,

but this is what it's going to mean to you if this comes off.

And can I lastly come back in terms of the points that have been made here by Barney and Martin

in terms of the Chamber of Commerce. And obviously you're working on a model here that's going

to hopefully co -deliver between you and the public sector how things can be better.

Well you know, Wakefield is on a regeneration plan. I'll be the first to admit that I'm

very worried, and it's not just Wakefield, about what we call the small businesses. Everybody,

everybody will welcome the pound shops because you can save money when the cost of living crisis has been so bad.

But at a time, do you consider

what the businesses need? What kind of businesses would you be approaching through the Chamber of Commerce?

It's just not all one -sided when there's a partnership.

What can we do when we're seeing shops that are boarded up and they're selling booze and all the rest of it

in the windows. That's not just a shop that needs some investigation. They are in themselves

businesses, but how do we promote more

than what we're seeing in terms of what's happening?

Do you have connections with these businesses? Are the members not in the Chamber of Trade?

When you're talking about small businesses Barney, do you consider those are small businesses? There may be two or three

people working and I do know even that some of the workers are going to come from a cross boundary like Branford into Wakefield.

So I know some massive questions there, but I do think that there are issues here that look lovely.

But the front end and the high growth and all the rest of it gives us the basics in here on the plan

that's going to sell this to the people. I know it's a wide region,

but we've got to do it and we've got to go out and sell it as elected members.

It's presumably going to be in the implementation plan.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:11:45

When is that due to be in the public domain?

Because I think that would answer a lot of Councillor Rosie's questions.

I'll let you go first, David.

So thank you.

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:12:00

And again, you know, really pleased you've taken your time

to go through all the many words that we threw at you

on the committee.

So thank you very much.

And a lot of the points you make, we couldn't agree more.

I think having said that, I would, if you don't mind,

encourage you to look beyond the paper itself that came to you

and look at the growth plan itself.

because the corridors of opportunity probably make up about a tenth of what's in the growth plan.

The growth plan has five priorities and connectivity is just one of them.

The growth plan, the five priorities pick up, yes, connectivity, but it picks up skills, it picks up our key sectors, it picks up the foundational economy, it picks up growth in our places.

So I can assure you that this is the famous map that we've had a debate about and everything around it.

When it comes to transport and connectivity and the corridors of opportunity, that is just a part of the story that we're telling in the local growth plan.

And there are other priorities in there and other areas

of focus in there that hopefully mean

that we've told a much -rounded story about how we're looking

to grow the economy in West Yorkshire.

You talked about apprenticeships and how we work with business

and some of the key points that Bonnie and Martin have made.

Going back to the point the chair has just outlined.

At the end of every section in the local growth plan, we summarize it with a set of actions.

And the work that is going on right now is to turn those into actual implementation plans.

And over time, they will come to you.

So there will not be one implementation plan for the local growth plan.

It is not possible.

There are so many things in here that if we did it in one document

You will paper more than Wakefield with everything that we produce

But within it we talk about our sectors work next week

The Economic Committee is meeting and it's considering the growth plans the action plans for how we grow sectors in West Yorkshire

Within it we talk about centers effect a center of excellence as has been raised other economic committee next week

we're going into detail about our initial ideas about that.

And also, I can say that about virtually everything

in the early years, all of those key actions in here,

we are now taking forward into more detailed actions.

And some of the actions are already underway.

A lot of conversation already today

has been around economic and activity, work and health.

Michelle and the team are already on with this.

And from 1st of April next week, next month,

a lot of our delivery gets underway.

So there's a lot that is already underway.

There's more that is to come.

There won't be a single implementation plan.

But all the actions that we've set out there,

we are committed to, would be mandated

by our political leaders to make sure we

have a good idea about how we're going to deliver all of that.

And the work is already underway.

I think some of the points you made,

Councilor, are probably begun to bleed

into the next couple of point, the next couple of papers

around the reviews.

And I'm happy to talk about them now,

but you might want to take them when

that time comes in the agenda.

We've got time is yet and again, so if you

want to cover this now, so that we can focus on this

and to get out to wider than just the growth plan as well.

OK.

All right.

So we launched, alongside the work

we've done in the local growth plan, two reviews that

were almost concurrently, broadly around the same time.

One is about our skills system.

I use the word system loosely, and Michelle always

gives me funny eyes when I do that.

But essentially, as you know, the Comer authority

is quite a young organization.

The local authorities and the chambers and others

have been here for centuries before us.

And when the command authority was created

and our remit was inscribed in law,

that remit included adult skills.

And after that, we were given devolved responsibility

with funding for post-'19 adult skills training and employment

since then.

But the evolution is around skills.

But we didn't really have a discussion and an agreement,

particularly amongst the six partners,

the five local authorities and combined authority,

about whose role is it to do what?

And what is local, what is regional,

how do we work together,

on which issues do we work together,

on which issues should we expect the combined authority

to take the lead on,

because that is where it naturally fits for us

to do whatever we need to do, and on which issues

local authority partners take the lead on.

And even when we say local, what do we mean?

Do we mean local authorities?

Do we mean the voluntary sector?

What do we mean by that?

So we've taken a bit of time.

This was really inward looking, us and our local authority

partners, but also having conversations

with F -E colleges and others, just

to make sure we clean our house and we

have a good shared understanding of what our role is.

and we understand what the system is that we're playing in

and how we're going to do what we have to do

because as Yifat rightly said, the agenda is massive

and there's a lot of work to do.

So that review has taken place

and now we're moving into the implementation of that.

So we can go into detail on that.

The second one is about business.

We have a system, I'll use the word system again,

we have an arrangement around how we provide business

support.

We have what we call a growth hub model, which

is a hub and spoke.

So we've got a gateway in the center,

and we've got growth managers employed in local authorities,

where the command authority pays most of their wage.

But we have arrangements here.

We work with our business representative partners.

But what became very clear in developing the local growth

plan is that, as I think Barney mentioned,

yes, we have 100 ,000 businesses in West Yorkshire.

but that is 40 ,000 lower than it should be,

20 ,000 lower than it should be.

We've got 1 .2, 1 .3 million people in employment

in West Yorkshire.

That is still about 40 ,000 to 50 ,000 lower than it should be.

So we have arrangements that have been great,

but actually we're not shifting the dial

on the big things that matter.

So we decided to look at that, how we offer business support,

look at that again.

And a key thing on our minds, which

is partly why our colleagues are here right now.

A key thing on our minds is to make sure

that the combined authority at all times

is adding value when we act.

So we know that our business representative partners

and our universities and colleges and other sector

bodies offer business support out there anyway.

So we need to make sure that when we work,

we are adding value to what they do

and we're not duplicating or detracting

from what they already do.

But we actually work together.

So again, that's where that review is.

So I know that there's some there's some technical language in there on front end and all of that

But essentially what we're trying to say is irrespective of who you are and what business you run

When you come when you encounter us and our partners you should have the same

quality of support

Consistently across West Yorkshire that every business every business person should have access to the information

they need, the support they need,

should have the information they need

to access all the programs and projects out there

to enable them to grow their business.

And we should make sure that whenever we act,

we are acting together and we are duplicating.

So that is what that review is trying to do.

Sarah can give us chapter and verse on it

if members are interested.

But that is why we've got those two reviews,

is to make sure that we've done our homework right,

we've looked at the evidence, and we can now

begin to set up arrangements that will actually add value.

So that's what those two things are trying to do.

I want to go to Mike.

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 1:20:52

I'll add a couple of brief points, if you want to.

So first, it is in terms of a couple of comments made.

We do, in terms of the economy committee,

we do have the colleges and the universities sat

around the table with us.

And also, it's really important, as colleagues said,

to my left said, most training happens in a workplace,

whether it's a public sector, private sector, voluntary

sector.

And a lot of the providers of apprenticeship training

sit around the table with us as well.

So we do have post-'16 education sat around the table.

If I may offer a personal observation, not necessarily

a lot of West Yorkshire combined authorities, officers,

or members, it would be better to have a greater

link for the schools.

I mean, I know from my own experience,

you have a right patchwork out there with maintained schools,

academies, free schools.

some will work really well with us, some won't,

and to get that on a more consistent level.

And my final point on that is,

in West Yorkshire, it's not universal

from Silson to South Kirby,

but we have a really strong base

in further and higher education here across West Yorkshire.

That's a strength for us.

Just in terms of, you said a little bit of the challenge

about how Richard, my next door neighbor in Castleford,

is a ward council.

I'm not gonna take round some of the reports

we're talking about this morning

into my community meetings tomorrow and say,

people ask the question, well, here's 100 page report.

Believe me, when we sometimes get some of the reports

on some really technical skills funding,

there can be a lot more technical than we've got today.

That's a, I'm not sure if that's a threat or a promise,

but it is where we get to, and that's not, you know,

that's not what we take out to people, but you know,

you look about how does all this come together

and take like our corner of, you know,

our corner of Wakefield and Leeds,

it might not be these reports that people see,

but you know, people see things like, you know,

the development of production park in the area.

That's part of this, to see some of the high growth

businesses that are in the area.

I'm trying to think of the modern homes manufacturing

Castleford, we gave some money to some years ago.

They see those businesses coming forward,

a bit of the links to transport,

for people that live in WF10,

having platform two at Castleford station

and more trains to different areas.

People extending platform 17 at Leeds station,

And so it's easy to get on a train in Pontyfracts and Casford to come to Leeds for people that

work in Leeds city centre.

So people like to say I wouldn't take some of these papers out and like sit there and

read them out to people in the community meeting I don't think.

But they set the framework for what we want to achieve and the outcomes people do see

in like WF10, LS25, things like that.

And that's it.

And I think the final point as well is really important.

The work the Combined Authority does

with all the different partners around it,

if we are talking about how do we improve productivity

and economic output in West Yorkshire,

the high growth sectors we specialize in

are a really important part of that.

And that's something I'm going to be unapologetic about

cherishing and supporting.

And they're not universal ones.

I'm chair of the Core Cities group.

You know, other courses, Bristol and Sheffield

talk about defense, but they wouldn't talk about things that we've got. Liverpool and Manchester might, sorry, Liverpool and Newcastle might talk about life sciences and so on and so on.

There's different things. West Midlands, Birmingham would talk about automotive. We have some of everything, but the high growth ones, the real clusters will grow.

The skills strategy, we've touched on some of it earlier around, things like, you know, again, coming back to WF, WF10, the fact that we work to train bus drivers to work out of the Reavers Depot in Castleford is part of that, you know, being very, very clean.

There's people now in full -time jobs earning £30 ,000 a year that weren't before because of that.

And that alongside the other things we do is fundamentally important to us if we want to get more money into people's pockets in West Yorkshire.

It's a big part of it. There's work we've done around telecoms and civils, contractors.

I'm sure Michelle and Felix could probably reel off a load more examples.

But it is not just there is a few very high paid jobs and everybody else can just get on with it.

It really is. That whole structure is important to us around how we get more money in the pockets of people working in West Yorkshire.

Cllr Richard Forster - 1:25:39

Cllr Betty Rhodes - 1:25:42

you

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 1:26:07

I think you might have misunderstood our role in this is that we are consultees and have

been part of the development of this plan purely as consultees representing as many

private sector organizations as we can in delivery of it.

But we already work with all of the local authorities at different levels in the development

of their own economic plans and in their strategies

to interact with businesses.

And so we're already on with that, but directly in this,

there is no implementation plan in place yet

to know how we will be involved,

or rather we haven't started those conversations.

In fact, we're starting on Tuesday of next week.

That's interesting, so I'll wait for that.

I'm sure you have a comment on that.

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 1:26:50

Can I quickly just add, just really quickly,

Because I think the point was made that I was decrying Wakefield in some way.

If you want inclusive growth, you need growth.

If you want to share the wealth,

you're gonna have to have someone who's gonna create that wealth first.

And that's why when we look at a lack of businesses or short -form businesses,

that's important.

That's important to our communities and we've gotta do something about that.

Quickly, I think there's a load of issues you raise around,

I think are gonna be covered in the work, health, and skills.

Such that combined with those come up with combined with the welfare changes at

the government announced this week,

combined with the get -room -working -I'll -be -gobsmacked,

those don't come back and you're not looking at that

in a meeting in a, well.

And I just wanna finally say,

there was talk about high growth,

and I think that's at the crux,

and I don't wanna lead you and say what you should be asking

but the question I think you should be asking is,

if we're talking about, as Felix says, WIC, adding value,

and if high -growth businesses are important,

you need to be asking,

well, how do you help high -growth businesses?

Do you help high -growth businesses

by helping those who are going to be successful anyway, or is a way of identifying the businesses

where the combined authorities resources are going to make a difference and make them high

growth. And I think that's what we need to be looking for and I think that's the question

you should be asking if I can be as bold as that.

you

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:29:55

Very happy to very very quickly. I think I said in my earlier response. We will not not be producing an implementation one implementation plan for the local growth plan. I don't want an action minutes that says we have committed to put to write an implementation plan for the local group plan. We will not be doing that. It is not possible. There are so many actions in there.

And it is not possible to do that.

It covers everything the combined authority does.

What I said was, all the actions that we've committed

to in here will come through in their own right,

and you will have the opportunity to scrutinize them

as they come along.

But there will not be one implementation plan

for the local good plan.

So please, I just want to clarify that.

I completely take the point, you made, Councilor Edwards,

about the provision of specialist skills

and us making sure we've got enough of that

across the patch.

And the particular point you make about scaffolders

has come up, we've discussed that.

But some of these specialists here,

as Michelle can give us,

the setup you need, the specialist skills you need,

even the risk insurance that the providers require

to be able to do it is such that there are only few places in the country that are set up to do that.

And so there are certain things that we will have here that other places also don't have.

And people from there will travel from there here to do that because we already have the set up for it.

And likewise, there are certain things that we don't have here that people here might have to travel somewhere else for.

Now we could take the decision to say we will make sure we've got provision here for everything we need.

That is a decision that our political leaders can make,

and we'll have to find the money for it.

Or we could enable and support our people who live here

who need that support to be able to access that support there,

especially if it's residential and there's some funding

or whatever needed for them to be able to go down and do that.

A lot of this also, and as Martin said,

a lot of this training happens with employers.

What we're looking at is how we can co -invest in this,

because the combined authority cannot be the best

will in the world fund every kind of training

that everybody needs.

So we're looking to work with employers to see how we can co

invest, especially when employers can see clear line

of sight from their investment to the outcome

of that investment, which is x number of people being skilled,

come back in and support them to do what they have to do.

So that is what we committed to doing,

but we cannot commit to being able to provide every specialist

training here in West Yorkshire we simply cannot do that. Our providers here

even do not want to do that because a lot of them are not set up to do all of

it but where we can we absolutely will. I don't know if there's any specific information.

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:33:03

Yeah I mean I guess I think pathways to construction is a really good example

though isn't it where we need to find a way to get more to enable those pathways

into employment and within employment as well.

And there is an acute need for additional capacity

to make that happen.

It's actually, it's an area where there is not only

business demand, but also huge amount of interest

from entrance to the low market as well.

So it remains a very, very popular career

and if we can make sure there's enough places.

So really, really important areas to raise.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:33:38

Right, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get everybody

who still need a contribution to make a contribution and then if I can leave it

up to our guests to pick the bones out of it and react accordingly. So I've got

Councillor Brundle first of all, then Councillor Haig, then Councillor Lawson,

then Councillor Merritt, then Councillor Jenkins. So Councillor Brundle first please.

Thank you and I'll try me relatively brief I think a lot has been covered since I

put my hand up. It is probably first that someone has mentioned Todmorden before I

have in a meeting and I think it would challenge the most sort of forgotten

area and sort of Lancashire in the address rather than Yorkshire so it's

definitely up there. So I will just echo the comments around that East Lancashire

Cllr Helen Brundell - 1:34:24

link I don't want to return to the map conversation but I think that is

sort of the obvious omission for me coming from where I represent and the

people working Burnley Rochdale Way they don't come to Leeds really so I

just think that yeah is something to flag. Other things, so it's good to see

the mention of the electrification of the Calder Valley line within the

transport section. I'm conscious quite a lot within that transport sort of

section is within the Combined Authorities remit and within their saying

that is one thing that isn't so I'm hoping that that is maybe a commitment

to some lobbying or some conversations around that continuing. I know it's been

about a decade of that and Tracy's probably been asked about that a lot but

yeah good to see it'd be nice to sort of have that commitment to continue in that

conversation. I also wanted to ask around sort of the measure of success and

you've talked about aspiration and how even if you fail at some of it that

aspirations still there. I think the problem even as elected member never

mind a member of the public is there's always a strategy and there's always a

and there's always a growth plan and it's quite hard to then measure the

success of that and just wondering if you had any thoughts around sort of what

that success would would look like I know it's hard to quantify and put

numbers on but yeah as to when you'd say yes this worked would be would be good

and then just another brief comment which something else reminded me of

around the skills conversation is there's the aspect of it that is do

people have the skills for what we need the other aspect is we've got for

example a large business in Tobin and called we're minerals which has recently

said they are closing a lot of their manufacturing is moving to South Africa

they're moving a few jobs to Rochdale which again that East Lancashire

Manchester link but there is going to be several hundred people with quite

specific manufacturing skills with nowhere to go from there and I think

it's yeah looking at it from the other angle of what skills do we have in a

certain area and how do you then get the right business in that area as well as

working at it from the other angle training people up with those skills.

That was a brief run through some thoughts maybe more than questions but

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:36:47

Kate Haigh - 1:36:52

Thank you. Thank you. Right, Councillor Heade. Thank you, Chair. My questions are really around the responsiveness and agility of our plans.

I'm old enough to remember when a mouse was something that lived under the building and stole your sandwiches.

And five years ago, we were all gearing up to move,

or many of us gearing up to move,

onto working entirely online.

And we're now talking about, at a national level,

many jobs, including possibly our own being replaced by AI.

And we've already discussed how local plans

are at different stages.

Of course, immediately you've written it down.

It's out of date.

And we're seeing things nationally.

I'd certainly be interested in knowing

what conversations we're having nationally about things that

are going to come down the line from government

and have direct impacts on our local economy.

And we've just seen the NHS England announcement

and definitely an ambition that's

going to impact us on government,

on local and civil service jobs.

So when those things happen, are we agile enough to adapt our plans to reskill people, move people into other areas of employment?

And there is also, I think, when you're looking at benefit changes that are coming down the line as well,

there's going to be quite a demand for work readiness and reskilling people.

And have we got the capacity to do that?

So really the questions are, can we turn on the sixpence and meet that

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:38:37

need, for those who remember what sixpences were?

Thank you, thank you. I can't remember them yet.

Councillor Lawson and then Councillor Meddick.

Thank you, Chair. Briefly, I just want to repeat a couple of points.

But just to extend something to the very set identification.

It's a technical sport and obviously it's taking

as a principle as well.

There's something that we're going to deal with.

I just want to be reassured that the list of economic

is a certification if you like.

I'm not very great so we're not sucking

like other communities.

and that's as I've already said, another work action,

so original work actions for example.

That was one of the first points.

The other one was, what seems to be the line

from the spending review, that's the idea

that we've been digging through the papers.

That said, how do we, what work can we do

to preempt our implementation plans?

What are our fastest ways if we like to use all

I think things like in the bottom you highlighted, just looking at how we consult businesses,

looking at it at the moment I find it recognizable and in local authority I find this to be simply

broad principles in their consultation at the moment.

I think we'll probably do something else.

We'll take it into a different place so we can take this plan off the table and get people

excited about it, get businesses excited about it, I think that's excellent.

Thank you.

Thanks a minute.

Yes, I'll try and run through quickly.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:40:30

first question was about in the main paper we have the objective for boosting

Cllr Dave Merrett - 1:40:37

the region's fastest growing business sectors later on we talked about high

growth opportunity and I was wondering how clear are we in terms of which which

we are doing and you know we talked about fast growing business sectors if

is fast growing and we're picking up jobs,

maybe the issue is already dealt with.

So I do wonder whether it should much more

be focused on the opportunity.

Other changes in government approach,

clearly the defense sector is going

to be a significant growth area.

The existing industrial base in West Yorkshire

still has a number of those capabilities of making sure that we're able to facilitate.

So I did wonder whether that first one's quite the right one, whether it's about in effect

identifying the, should be much more about identifying the opportunities, tackling the

bottlenecks, those sorts of things. Mr. May not very much asked the supplementary question

I was going to ask about that. I think we do as a committee need to come back to that.

Picking up the excellent discussion led by Councillor Berry in terms of skills and education

and so on and the role of the schools in this which has been picked up by James as well.

I wondered what conversations the mayor is having in terms of those national discussions

on the sorts of sets of issues around that. You know, are schools adequately focused on

what their kids are going to do when they leave, giving them the right sets of skills,

giving them the right aspirations. We had a problem in the past in York where a lot

of our traditional employers went down the tubes and there was a real

challenge with those kids. They saw what their fathers had done and that had been

where they'd been thinking of going and they basically didn't know what or where

to go and the demotivation that followed from that.

We've got to give people motivation.

And again, this comes back to your locational strategy.

If the real big challenges in terms of employment

and inclusion are in the Wakefield's and the Bradford's,

how much are we going to focus the job opportunities,

the new industries, the new skills in those areas

because that's actually where you can start to change

the kids' views of what opportunities they have

and you get that better inclusion that way.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:45:42

Thank you.

Chancellor Jenkins.

Yes, so this is a very quick one.

So in April 2024, the local enterprise partnerships were devolved to

David Jenkins - 1:45:56

the combined authority.

And yesterday they were abolished. So what are the implications?

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:46:03

Right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go left to right.

So, starting with Michelle, is there anything you would like to comment on what you just

heard?

Okay, so there were a theme of, sorry, I took my phone to my phone, sorry.

There were a theme of comments around reskilling and whether that was in response to redundancy

all to do with technological and industrial change.

And so a couple of examples in that kind of space.

Retraining and upskilling is a key part of the system

where we do have regional responsibility.

And I'm able to commission at pace the kind of courses that

are most in demand in our economy.

So yes, absolutely, we're able to be agile there.

There are limitations to that, not least the capacity

of the education training system to respond and that remains an area of really important

strategic focus. So for example in the areas that are the fastest growing and the most

in demand it's fairly obvious that you can earn more in industry than you can training

the next generation and that's an area that we really need to be able to collaborate with

industry to address. So yes retraining, upskilling, whether that's about technological change

or whether that's about redundancy and relocation of businesses is absolutely the area that we have levers in.

And work readiness. And there was a question about work readiness from Councillor Haig related,

I think, to young people in particular, I think.

But again, whether that's about young people, whether that's about post 19 coming out of education or about people that are adults who've been out of work,

for some time, absolutely work readiness is an area where we have got leavers and

where a lot of devolved adult skills funding is spent to really really good

and really really strong effect. There was a question then from Councillor

Merritt about the mayor's interest in schools and careers, that she was better

able to answer that herself, but what I can tell you is that she's made specific

commitment for West Yorkshire to become a region of learning and

creativity and she sees a commitment to all age careers is really central to

delivering that. Now for about ten years the Combined Authority has had a role in

working with schools to improve connections between employers and

education through which we work with 181 schools. There is a great, that is a great

platform to build from, particularly into into into primaries and

and you specifically talked about careers and ambition and that's absolutely the kind of space

that you know that she has said she's got priorities. You also talked about, Councilor Maritaud

also asked a really interesting question, you've obviously read the papers in great detail about

the kind of West Yorkshire approach to business engagement and a much more locally led

approach to skills in terms of individual engagement.

I think really what you're seeing there is that

when we're talking about people that are a long way

from the labor market, the best route to engaging with them

is at the most local level possible.

And all the evidence tells us that.

All the evidence tells us that the most effective way

to engage with people is at the most local level possible.

And particularly if you're talking about people

a long way from the labor market or taking those first steps

into learning or employment support.

As you go up your educational and your earning journey,

the geographical footprint becomes bigger.

So at level three, you're looking

at much more of a travel to work area across West Yorkshire.

And businesses, of course, recruit from largely,

but not exclusively, are interested in recruiting

from a larger footprint, particularly

if we're talking about high growth and innovative.

And that's probably some of the reasoning.

But I think it's that point that you made is one that we need to consider really carefully

when we think about our roots to engagement with both individuals and employers and how

that's best done.

But it was an interesting contrast to draw.

Thank you.

Felix, do you want to?

Very quickly, I think the BTSAR I'm sure will pick up the point you made and why the business

approach is the way it is, especially that middle bit

of the triangle of where we're trying to work to partner.

Start with the easy ones first.

local enterprise partnership is coming to an end.

We knew that was going to happen,

which is why we set up the business board.

So there's no gap, really.

The business board is not doing exactly

what the lab used to do.

It's a different entity altogether,

but that was a key part of our response.

So we are quite confident

and that we don't have a gap in our provision there.

Decarbonization, very good point.

But the approach we took with this,

the Lookout Growth Plan is long enough.

So the approach we took was where there's already

a lot of work underway or there's already work completed,

we wouldn't go to a lot of detail in the Lookout Growth

Plan about it.

So you would notice in there, we don't

see a lot about housing because we already

have a housing strategy.

So we refer to it and keep the key points.

Likewise in decarbonization and net zero,

the climate environment plan is just coming out

if it's not come out already.

So we did not feel it was necessary

to go into a lot of detail on there,

but please rest assured that's taken incredibly seriously

and we've got the work being done there.

A good point was made about densification

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:52:00

and desertification, and they boil down to really the point

we're making, what's around displacement.

And the reassurance I can give you

is that nothing comes through for approval

to our political leaders if it's not

been through certain tests.

There are additionality tests that we put every spending

decision through.

The additionality test looks at substitution,

It looks at leakage, and it looks at displacement.

And the fourth is multiplies.

So we do take account of that.

We don't always get it right.

It's not an exact science.

The econometrics that goes into that

nearly killed me in university.

So I know exactly what it's like,

but there's a lot of modeling and estimates going on there.

But we do take account of it.

So there's a point made about responsiveness

and how agile we are.

and that is linked to point made earlier on around job

losses in certain areas and how we mobilize.

I suppose that just two very quick things

that I'll say around that.

After the Lookout Growth Plan was completed,

the work and health agenda caught fire and accelerated.

But we've been able to respond because the ethos

and the principle of it is hardwired in the Lookout Growth

Plan anyway.

So we've been able to mobilize, get ourselves together,

and there's a lot of activity that has been kicked off

and that is only gonna grow.

So we believe that we've got the required level of agility.

It's never easy, especially when resources

have to be redeployed.

But we are aware of that and linked to that job losses,

unfortunately, it's a fact of life,

but we work very closely with our job center partners.

We have responsiveness approach.

So there's a deployment.

Companies have to, above a certain number of job losses,

they have to notify nationally.

And there's a register that is kept,

and we are notified of that.

And we work with the job centers

to make sure we can mobilize and provide the workers

with whatever support they need.

A lot of the time, a lot of them say

they don't need our support, they are fine.

But where they need our support,

we are able to mobilize quickly with our partners to make sure people get the support they need.

Thank you.

Councillor Lewis.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 1:54:29

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 1:54:32

Thanks, Chair. I'll be very quick.

I'm not going to enter the map debate again.

What I would say is it's about as quick to get to Togbond on the train as it is to get to Myleeds Council 1 on the bus from here.

So we can go around who, again, who represents

most out -of -the -way areas.

So I do think it is, but there is a point there.

There is a point there about how transport does underpin.

In West Yorkshire, where we don't

have the density of transport networks,

even some of our comparative core cities and combined

authorities have, how important that is for us,

and that's why it is.

How we present it, I think we've covered enough this morning.

but it demonstrates that it's such an important issue for us.

I mean, there's a question about agility and change that a few

councillors brought up, things that are happening.

I mean, NHS England specifically, we've been talking to the department

this week around how changes in structures and getting rid of some of the bureaucracy

that was put in over the last 15 years doesn't actually impact how work happens

and making sure we are at the centre of that.

There's still going to be a lot of people in the Department for Health,

which is a big employer in Leeds,

and NHS England, another big employer who's still going to be doing work

to deliver health services across the country.

That's really important for us.

There is also, because of the length of time the NHS has been based here,

there's around, I think it's around 15 ,000 jobs around Leeds,

and the wider Yorkshire area that have come out of the NHS,

it's really important we keep those at the centre.

I'm going to ask AI what are six pence is later.

I'm too young to remember it.

But I think, again, it is a whole agility.

You know, it is the whole agility

in responding to change point, I think, is something that,

again, has to be there.

Again, five years.

And I remember about just after Christmas in 2020,

we were appointing a director of public health

at Leeds Council.

We were sat there as, shall we ask the candidates

about this virus we read about in the paper?

and we all decided it wasn't worth it.

There are more important things to ask about.

So then our director of public health.

So things can change.

I mean, COVID is an extreme example,

but things can change really.

Things can change really quickly.

And it is having that responsiveness there.

I mean, the densification point is an interesting one.

So obviously, again, thinking back to COVID.

So the evidence we have in Leeds,

I know there's other talk about Leeds,

because it's where I have the data, is some of the footfall in our town and district centers is higher than it was before COVID,

because it's the areas where we think there is a more preponderance of people working from home.

Some of the areas of Leeds, like my own ward, where we know people tend to do more blue collar jobs,

where they go to a workplace or drive a vehicle or something like that, that's not the case.

So there is recognizing some of these changes are happening.

I think the central thing about densification though,

is that it is, I said it earlier,

not everywhere in West Yorkshire is suitable

for increased property development,

transport infrastructure, energy requirements

and things like that.

But it is something that is gonna be important part

of our economic growth and how we use the rest of it

to bring, how we use the rest of it to bring people together.

The high growth point, again, is another interesting one

I could spend a long time on.

I think it is recognizing, first of all,

some of the potential for high growth,

how do we make sure we're at the front of it.

If AI is going to be really important in tech and delivery

of public and private services,

we need to be at the center of that,

and we've got some real historic strength in,

in Leeds and West Yorkshire,

Going back to you know, the development of financial and building societies years ago about and how the internet the how the hardware of the internet was put together that gives us some real potential strengths and then we've got to really whether it's collectively sectors or

Individual businesses lean in on that there's other things in terms of going right back to where we started council around our

local development frameworks actually making sure we've got their sites available for

a lot of planning we get hooked upon that when we talk about in our council to get hooked on housing numbers and where

housing goes but actually land for industrial and commercial development

and making sure it's got access to

20 years ago to be access to roads now

We're talking about access to energy connections to the grade where that power comes from as well

So that's all the road around high -growth industry if part of that is

Is having the right sites available with the right infrastructure like that's a requirement now and again

History of part of sort of coal and generation in parts of West Yorkshire have really good grid

Connectivity making sure we've got our land use planning right as part of a power that's making

Make sure it goes forward. I'll just pick up council Jenkins question about the left

So we in West Yorkshire the left and the combined authority worked as a single organization for quite a long time

I don't think that was a case in every part of the country.

So some of the formal legislative changes you refer to

actually here in practical terms in West Yorkshire

have been in place a long time.

So the Left Chair was always a voting member

of the Combined Authority,

going back to when the Combined Authority was formed.

So it's always been, I think we're probably,

and other places have been a similar position to us,

but some of the formal legislative changes,

we're probably a little bit ahead of always being ahead of that.

Mandy Ridyard, who is the chair of the business board,

which is a sort of successor body to the left.

I know she couldn't be here this morning, but she again,

she's on the combined authority and brought that work,

has brought that work forward.

So the left and absolutely the left is part of the work

of the combined authority and has been

has been for a while.

Thank you. Martin.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:00:47

Thank you. We are not a political organisation, so none of these points are meant to be political,

but your point about work readiness I think is very accurate. We now have an additional

problem that changes to employment legislation mean that the opportunities for those people

to find employment are getting limited. We're already hearing from lots of organisations

they're less likely to give people a chance that they would have done previously. I think

I think we need to definitely be wary of that

because it's gonna cause a problem.

Then secondly, just a general point about skills funding.

The majority of our skills funding currently

is aimed at giving individuals the skills

not to address organizational or employment requirements

or regional requirements.

And that's just the way that the funding works.

And so we have to work within those restraints

or try and lobby to get those rules changed

so that we can address all of the needs that we all have,

both as businesses and other organizations in regions

to address those skills.

The business support, the review of business support

that's currently going underway and the centralization of it

just as a personal comment on this is that

for the last 10, 12 years,

is the support again driven by the funding streams

has come from numerous different government departments,

numerous different organizations to delivery locally

through all sorts of different bodies and contracts.

And the result of that is it's been very confusing

to businesses to access.

And so some kind of centralization of even message

makes that much better and less confusing for business

and means they're more likely to get the help

that they want if they're looking at starting a business

or growing a business or they're looking to export

for the first time.

And then just a final thing,

and I'm gonna make a bad point on the throat, Felix,

but I'm colorblind, so that color's meant nothing.

And I'm not.

I'm not.

Thank you.

Okay, Barney.

Thanks for that.

I think quite a lot of the points made there

Cllr Bob Felstead - 2:02:57

sort of reflect for strategies like these

will always have to identify areas to focus on.

You can't just say we go for everything,

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 2:03:05

and that means it's gonna be potentially

winners and losers, but I think it's really important,

and I hope it's a role of you as a committee,

but it's definitely what the FSB always do.

We make sure that as far as possible

people don't get left behind,

businesses don't get left behind or ignored.

I think just a quick example of why this is important.

So within a growth strategy,

retail and hospitality will never be included

because it's low productivity.

It's not seen as important.

However, you think about your own town or city.

Visitors to that town or city,

what they think of it will be entirely based,

or not in type, but 90 % base on the retail and hospitality

offer.

And they'll go away thinking about Todmorden.

I'll mention Todmorden again.

Or Keithley, or whatever.

And it'll be about what the retail and hospitality is.

And that will affect, actually, can

make a big effect on investment and on all other things.

So even if it's not in the strategy,

these things are important.

And FSB recognizes that.

I actually think the combined authority do.

But I think you as a committee need to keep pushing on that,

hopefully.

And the only other thing I'll say, the final thing I'll say is I think the secret to success

of these strategies, and it's something that I've sort of grappled with whilst I've worked

with the FSB, really key is understanding what the combined authority can actually do.

We've got an economy out there with loads of actors.

We've got a government who have a bigger impact than the combined authority do.

It's a free market we exist in.

You can't change a lot of these things or you can only influence at the edges.

So it's understanding what power you have and how you can best use that and that's what's going to make these things work

Thank you

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:04:47

Thank you, it's brief, but just two things so on the high growth high growth potential

Discussion just to reassure we are looking at that as part of the implementation that will be being discussed going forward

What do you actually mean and where we target that and then on the centralization of the business support infrastructure?

and Martin's absolutely right when he says it needs some level of consistency and and and

coordination, but I'd actually describe it as less centralized than before. Previously we had a model that was very much

CA and local authority, which was the infrastructure, and we are not the business support ecosystem.

So actually this new model is working much more effectively with the likes of the chambers and the FSB to make sure we've got a

federated growth of model so that absolutely there is no wrong door for a business wherever they go,

wherever their entry point is, they will get signposted navigated to the right spot at the right time. So it's much more

federated than it probably was before, but in a coherent

in a coordinated way.

Thank you.

Right, so we've had an excellent debate

and an excellent discussion.

And we certainly talked about a map, which we're good for bad.

Right, if as a result of the contributions anyone's made

today, there's any question that suddenly you

get a eureka moment when you're sitting on the train

and it's hanging outside a station,

it never seems to be moving.

If you want to submit the question in to Katie, she can try and get an answer for you if there's

something that occurs to you because we've, towards the end of the meeting, we've had to

move things along at a pace which meant that not everybody's had the same opportunity so if you've,

something arises, I try to be as equal as I possibly can. We're going to thank our guests

for coming along particularly to Barney and Martin who were given quite short

notice that they were they were needing to do it so thank you very much. You're

welcome to stay for the last item but if you want to get off and get some lunch

you are free to go. We're now on to item six which is the work program and the

6 Work Programme and Members Updates

members update. The work program is as and is there anybody who want to make any

comments under the members updates.

It wasn't made yet.

I don't know whether it's appropriate to bring it to this meeting, but

Cllr Betty Rhodes - 2:07:07

there is concerns around, and it's not just on this, it's been other

Geraldine Carter - 2:07:11

things as well, on what land is owned by various bodies.

And as we are aware,

when the Combine Authority came into place prior to that, there was government office prior to that, it was West Yorkshire up to 1992.

there is this disparate view of who owns land around and about and I wonder if we

could have an update on where that sits and if some of the West Yorkshire land

came in this direction. One of the main issues is that we have a big

problem at Junction 22 of the M62. It is getting flighted unmercifully and

nobody will accept ownership of the land. So with Yorkshire Water fighting the

with Highways England found in the corner.

Coderdale Council never has owned the land,

but it was part of Wakefield in days gone by

and came into West Yorkshire

because it was an urban district area.

So it is so complex, and I wondered if there's a mechanism

of finding these things out

so that we can work better, more effectively.

Now that the authority of wanting an asset manager,

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:08:15

I think we can refer that to them.

They'll do something about that. But yeah, good point

It's problematic because the land originally was was allocated to Wakefield Council because it was gathering grounds for the for the reservoirs

But that's going back

Whoever's in there. Oh, no, I remember that thing real

But then it just makes it so difficult. We've got this mega problems

Anything anything else? Yes

Cllr Bob Felstead - 2:08:49

about 1500 social houses.

I'm just wondering if there's any latitude in that,

that's called battery because solar in itself

might serve them well during the day,

but in the evening when your solar's gone,

there's absolutely zero coming from the grid,

so it might be worth putting small battery in

so that there's a reserve for some of these

social housing settings.

Any sense, Councillor Merrick?

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:09:18

Yes, looking at the forward plan of key decisions and more

Cllr Dave Merrett - 2:09:20

particularly a number of the officer

delegated decisions, there's quite a number of capital schemes where additional monies

are being asked for. I just wondered what performance information there is available

in terms of how well capital programme is being delivered in terms of budget and in

terms of being on time. That's one of the things I'll miss Councillor Barnes for.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:09:49

He kept me fully up to date on that. So that's one of the things I'll miss him on.

Happy to ask the question.

Councillor Carter.

I just had another one. It's come to my notice this week that a lot of

Geraldine Carter - 2:10:04

people are suffering issues with landlines

because BT are changing the mechanism of landlines and making them digital and if you haven't

got a digital phone you'll lose your landline capability and I've just wondered if it was

something that we wanted to look at to see how it's happening across the region because

it's just bonkers to me that BT can just decide to do something but nobody's ever known since

nobody, they've never communicated anything.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:10:36

I've been working with older people, age concern,

and others getting stuff.

I mean, I'm sure more people will be affected by it

and they need to do things.

I think it says here, that's definitely a district thing

for your local partnerships and what is your problem.

People aren't aware of what that means

because I work with vulnerable families,

but it's not, it's not new.

It's like going from the house to the...

Yeah.

Well, well, well, well, well.

Well, look, Callad and Katie do some research on that.

And I would have thought it would be, to be quite frank,

more localized.

What kind of digital inclusion is in the new local authority?

Yeah, it's very difficult. And I've

been a victim of it myself, Geraldine,

when I had a new system put in by Vodafone.

And I'm then one of the co -predictors.

Anyway, the problem is that this package is around 18th grade.

But if it isn't notified to people,

or they make inquiries to whoever,

their line is cut off, which actually then cuts off

the care link system to their home, which is that

the employee accepted the round.

And up and down the country, there's

been a few stories, I will get to another of these stories.

I have an extra coin for 20 pounds,

to an ex -employee technician to come and rectify life.

They are up and down the country at the same time.

There's been all these cases of elderly people

who suddenly have been put on.

And then it is, there's no connectivity with anybody

and families have actually been put on.

So in Germany it is happening,

and in fact, I tell you the other thing

that's happened as well.

There seems to be out there a perception

that somebody is going to change their provider,

you are immediately, immediately on that provider.

And the provider I had, which is the post office,

when I notified them or whatever,

they cut me up the very day, the very day I notified them.

I cut £120 for the LGBT technician.

So there's a lot around it, Chair.

And if it gets publicity out to this committee,

I think out there it will be wonderful.

I think we do lack from the committee any knowledge of what we are looking at in the community.

Publicity is a great thing.

Even if we can get the connections in the local authority, people need to contact.

I have no more about connections this morning. I have no network shows.

So if there's nothing more...

Hi, one more.

So it's in the report that Brownfield something I think was in the poll about it.

I know you've had a briefing on it,

but I was wondering if it was really

doing a good job on that.

I don't know if you'd be interested in the brownfields

money.

Well, when you look at where the schemes have been allocated

under the brownfields, and there was some money left over,

to the best of my knowledge, the government

have relaxed some of the criteria,

and they have extended the period of time

that Wacke can spend the money in.

But I think we've all probably got schemes in our own areas that might benefit from being brought forward quicker

Because they tend to bring affordable housing with them 10 not in every single piece, but 10 to

So I think yes, we'll what we'll do is we'll take that up because we I mentioned it yesterday

I got a briefing yesterday. What was the answer? I got 80 it was to be passed to somebody else, wasn't it?

It's yeah

Yeah, just got an email this morning about brownfield site updates

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 2:14:35

from the from my local authority

And I've had a quick look at it and on the map and there's two sites being

quartered on that map that have been built on that aren't a brownfield sites anymore. I

I mean, I think it is relevant.

Certainly as a result of Councillor Edwards raising the issue with me yesterday morning,

Katie and I raised it yesterday when we got the briefing on housing and we've agreed to

follow it up and we'll notify everybody of it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'm feeling a bit of a downer.

OK, no problem at all.

Right, so in that case, is there anything else?

Could I just commend the work done on several issues, but I think there are priorities within it that we ought to be considering in terms of agenda updates.

And I think one of those is the demolition and governance that we spoke about earlier.

I know we've said that we need to talk together, but could I suggest that that's the main item on the agenda as a priority, because these things are going to be fast at this end.

Yep, I totally agree.

Not yet.

Right, so in that case, thank you all very much for your time.

The next meeting is on the 2nd of May, and then there's a provisional one of the 18th of July,

subject to people being reappointed from their councils after the AGMs.

I don't know what we'll do if all of a sudden everybody who comes along after the AGMs

can't attend on the 18th of July. I don't know what we would do then, it would be a

real mess. So thank you very much for your time and we'll be in touch. Thank you.

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair)

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council)

Leeds City Council

Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative)

Mr Khaled Berroum (Scrutiny Officer)

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups)

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Ms. Katie Wright, Scrutiny Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)

Cllr Ralph Berry

Cllr Helen Brundell

Geraldine Carter

Matt Edwards

Cllr Bob Felstead

Cllr Richard Forster

Kate Haigh

David Jenkins

Cllr Dave Merrett

Cllr Betty Rhodes

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Scrutiny Committee - Friday 21 March 2025, 10:30am - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Scrutiny CommitteeFriday, 21st March 2025 at 10:30am

Agenda

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Votes

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:00:00

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:00:54

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:00

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:01:05

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:22

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:01:25

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:31

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:01:34

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:43

Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:01:46

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:01:52

1 Apologies for Absence

Ms. Katie Wright, Scrutiny Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:06

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:02:13

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

3 Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

4 Minutes of the meeting held on 24 January 2025

Cllr Dave Merrett - 0:03:52

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:03:58

Mr Khaled Berroum (Scrutiny Officer) - 0:04:01

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:04:14

Matt Edwards - 0:04:19

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:04:29

5 Supporting Business and Growing the economy

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:05:20

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:05:29

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:05:56

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:06:56

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:06:57

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:05

Matt Edwards - 0:07:13

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:07:16

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:31

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:07:35

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:07:38

Matt Edwards - 0:07:44

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:07:47

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:08:06

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:08:07

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:08:09

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:08:12

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:13:26

David Jenkins - 0:13:45

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:13:50

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:15:36

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:15:45

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:17:41

David Jenkins - 0:17:42

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:17:46

Cllr Bob Felstead - 0:17:59

Cllr Barry Anderson (Chair) - 0:18:04

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:18:06

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:21:25

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:24:12

Cllr Ralph Berry - 0:25:02

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:27:19

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:29:17

Sarah Bowes, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:32:19

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:32:55

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:34:28

Cllr James Lewis (Leeds City Council) - 0:38:29

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:40:19

Michelle Burton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:42:03

Mr Martin Hathaway (Private Sector Representative) - 0:43:10

Barney Mynott, Advisory Representative (West Yorkshire Business Groups) - 0:43:30

Geraldine Carter - 0:44:55

Felix Kumi-Ampofo, Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:47:10

Geraldine Carter - 0:49:35

Scrutiny Committee
Friday, 21st March 2025 at 10:30am