Heart of the South West Devolution - Newsletter 2

Devon County Council sent this bulletin at 26-10-2015 09:15 AM GMT
Heart of the South West

23 October 2015
Heart of South West

Welcome to the second weekly update from the Heart of the South West Devolution Programme Management Office. Please share this newsletter with colleagues and in your own communications.

Please let us know if you would like others to be added to our distribution list

If you would like to give us any feedback on this newsletter, or would like more information on any of the topics discussed, please email us on DevolutionPMO@somerset.gov.uk and our team will gladly help you.

Best wishes

Heart of the South West Devolution Programme Management Office

Latest progress

  • Stuart Brown from Mendip District Council has agreed to be the Chief Executive lead for the Resilience and Connectivity theme.
  • A communications officers group met for the first time this week to discuss how best to coordinate communications activity.

Preparing our bid

  • In recent weeks, and until 13th November, our theme leads will be working across the area to produce outline proposals for discussion and refinement. After that, a first draft will be produced and mock ‘Challenge Sessions’ will be held to test our proposals.
  • In the meantime, local authorities are preparing their Forward Plans to give the bid proper time to go through their decision-making processes.

Timeline to submit our bid

Now: Theme groups developing and refining draft chapters.

13 November: Draft chapters passed to the Programme Management Office to be compiled into a single draft bid.

20 November: Single draft bid distributed to partners for comment.

Mid-late November: Mock ‘Challenge Sessions’ for each theme

20 November – 18 December: Reworking of the draft bid and formal approval of the bid by individual partners.

18 December: Formal submission of devolution bid to Government.

Local Government Association

Government and Local Government Association support

We have heard from Government that they are beginning to allocate departmental contacts to each of our themes, and Andrew Campbell from the LGA will be helping us prepare for upcoming ‘Challenge Sessions’ with Government and advising us as our bid develops.