To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 10 September 2025 (enclosed).

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 September 2025, as circulated, were approved and signed as a correct record.

To consider the report of the Monitoring Officer.

The Chairman, Cllr. Nick Brown welcomed Members, Officers and Andy Wood, a consultant appointed to support the North City South proposal, who joined the meeting virtually to answer technical questions on the financial projections. An invitation had been extended to non-executive Members to attend the meeting to allow the proposal to be fully examined.

The Chief Executive led on the presentation which highlighted the following:

·         Tight timescales to work on the proposal – the proposal will be submitted on the 28 November 2025.

·         Engagement has taken place in the form of Member workshops and consultation with residents and stakeholders.

·         Officers from the Council have been instrumental in the development and writing of the proposal, leading on:

o   Devolution

o   Data

o   Economic Growth (alongside HBBC)

o   Neighbourhood Partnerships and Prevention (alongside Melton and HBBC)

o   Governance – report templates and structures

o   Public and stakeholder engagement

o   Proof reading and finalisation 

·         Leicester City Council boundary extension

o   Discussion with City and County initially

o   Discussions with the City but could not identify a way forward

o   Revised guidance letter from MHCLG strongly identifies district boundaries as building blocks

o   Public feedback

o   Revised funding arrangements for city under fairer funding based on deprivation

o   Our modelling shows a sustainable city

o   Housing needs and room to grow addressed through Mayoral Strategic Authority.

·         Options Appraisal

o   Option 1: Two unitary councils, with existing city and county boundaries. Rutland included in county unitary??

o   Option 2: Two unitary councils with expanded Leicester City and reduced county unitary including Rutland??

o   Option 3: Two unitary councils. An expanded Leicester City including Oadby &Wigston and Blaby districts, and a second made up of the rest of Leicestershire and Rutland??

o   Option 4: Three unitary councils with no boundary change. County split into north with Rutland, and south??

o   Option 5: Three unitary councils with expanded Leicester City with modest boundary changes and county split into north with Rutland, and south?

·         Devolution requirements – the power to force an upper tier authority to have a devolution power does not currently exist?. The English Devolution White Paper outlined how the Government will legislate for a ministerial directive to enable the Government to create strategic authorities. The English Devolution and Empowerment Bill introduces a new route for the Secretary of State to establish and modify a combined authority without requiring the consent of the local authorities in the area covered.?

·         Data, Evidence, Assumptions and Limitations

o   Used specialist finance consultants for finance modelling – approved by all s151s?

o   Agreed shared data sets with County and City Inc. population figures, adults and children's social care data?

o   Population as predicted by ONS on 1 April 2028 using 2022 base data (recent update)?

o   Used the Oxford Model for Economic Data predictions and a specialist consultant for the report?

o   ORS organised our consultation so statistically significant, independent and non-biased.?

o   Financial assumptions made as future government funding unknown

·         Financial Impact of LGR

·         Ten Year Financial Sustainability,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

There were no further actions arising.