Transparency and oversight of Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro project questioned
Councillors have raised concerns over transparency and the oversight of the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro project.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s scrutiny committee heard on Monday (September 28) from councillors from all parties expressing a desire to receive more information.
The metro as currently envisioned would see a purpose-built transport network constructed throughout Cambridge and extending to other parts of the county.
This summer, the Combined Authority signalled a change in strategy, moving away from larger vehicles to something similar to an earlier proposal for much smaller vehicles, which would reduce estimated costs from around £4billion to under £2billion.
The authority has set up, and incorporated, a company - a special purpose vehicle - to carry on with the delivery of the project.
Councillors at the overview and scrutiny committee said decision-making has excluded the task and finish group set up for oversight, and they raised further concerns over the role of scrutiny now that a private company structure exists.
Referencing a proposed change in the technology and design, Labour councillor Jocelynne Scutt said: “One of the issues that is of great concern is that suddenly we were presented with a complete rewrite of the original proposal.”
Liberal Democrat Markus Gehring said: “Since May, we are basically flying blind.”
He said councillors needed to have greater access to information beyond what appears in public releases, and added that some questions asked by councillors in January “are to some degree still outstanding”.
“We can’t just have access to documents once they are at the board, we need to actually know what is going on in order to scrutinise the process properly,” he said. “Somewhere there is a broken telephone wire.”
He said he hoped by raising the issue, the Combined Authority “could start changing back to the culture that we had for the last three years”.
He said: “Given that we are now creating a wholly-owned company, the transparency issues are going to become more pressing rather than less pressing.
“It’s wholly owned by the Combined Authority. The staff will be co-located with the Combined Authority, wherever they are ending up. But they could always say, because it’s a private company, we don’t let councillors know what the current discussions are.”
He added: “I’m very concerned about the lack of transparency. These are quite significant sums once we get out of the planning and into the later business stages. Keeping us all in the dark is not going to work for the public going forward”.
Cllr Scutt said: “It’s been apparent that there have been efforts to have proper communication which actually, as Cllr Gehring points out, have not come to fruition.”
And she added: “There is a great deal of disquiet as to the way that the task and finish group is not being presented with information that is necessary to work on if we are to be effective.
“In order for them [the Combined Authority] to do their job properly they must recognise our role as a scrutiny committee, but we can only do that if we do obtain the information,” she said, adding “our role as a scrutiny committee is not being fulfilled if we are actually not doing this job of oversight”.
Cllr Scutt said there are confidentiality provisions that allow for councillors to maintain an oversight role of information that is not released to the public.
Conservative councillor Alan Sharp said: “I agree with Cllr Gehring there, it’s not so much dialogue I see, it’s more decisions, minutes of meetings etc etc.”
He added: “Even if they don’t want this information to be publicly disclosed I feel that as the task and finish group we should at least have the opportunity to look at those papers that are exempt, otherwise I feel we are not fulfilling our role.”
Conservative councillor Heather Williams said the newly created company does not necessarily mean councillors will not be able to scrutinise the work.
Citing her own council, South Cambridgeshire, as an example, she said: “There are examples out there where it could work and is working in places, so I’m sure it is something that can be overcome.”
She said of South Cambridgeshire District Council: “I might not always be happy with the levels of transparency to the public but members have always had access to that information. And I’m sure there could be a resolution.”
The Combined Authority board has today (Wednesday) appointed renowned tunnelling expert Lord Robert Mair as chairman of the special purpose vehicle.
In response to the points about scrutiny, a Combined Authority spokesperson said: “The mayoral Combined Authority is being open and transparent with how the CAM programme is progressing.
“There have been two successive public reports to the board about setting up the SPV, including today’s recommendation to appoint Lord Mair as board chair. Until the SPV recruits board members and staff, and begins transacting business, there is nothing further to disclose.
“It is the role of the transport and infrastructure committee to oversee the development of this CAM project and it regularly receives public reports on progress. If the overview and scrutiny committee members want greater engagement and constructive input, they have the ability to make some positive recommendations to Combined Authority board members about how they propose to use their powers to help us deliver the very best from this project.
“The Combined Authority has responded to requests for information on CAM from overview and scrutiny committee members, where information has been available to provide.”
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