Important to gauge public opinion via consultation

LAST week the results of the consultation on the devolution deal for Cornwall were published. Of the 6,105 responses, there was general support for a package of measures which included further powers and funding for Cornwall Council to be able to address issues such as housing and social care.

However, 69% of those who responded disagreed with the proposals for a mayor. As a result, the council will no longer be pursuing a so-called ‘Tier 3 Devolution Deal’ and the required mayor, and instead switch to focus on a new Tier 2++ deal, further enhancing our powers with no changes to governance.

Consultations such as these are important for properly understanding public opinion on an issue, without being as divisive as a referendum. It is important that we gauge public opinion and respect the outcomes, so it is positive that Linda Taylor and her team have listened. Sometimes people are sceptical about consultations of this nature, but this shows that they are heeded, and this one has been accepted as giving a good indication of what Cornish people are thinking.

Throughout this process I have been genuinely quite agnostic on the idea of a mayor, and could see both sides. On the one hand, having a directly-elected leader, or perhaps Ledyer in Cornish (pronounced ‘Readier’), could have created in one individual a powerful “voice for Cornwall” and strengthened accountability to local people in a more direct way, rather than having a model that relies quite heavily on a council chief executive. On the other side of the argument, the idea of a single individual representing the whole of Cornwall unsettles some of our Cornish sensibilities. Can our historic “one and all” culture be represented in a “one for all” system of democratic accountability? If we have lots of councillors from one party but a directly elected leader from another, or no party at all, would that create problems? In the end I was concerned that, whatever the argued benefits of such a model, it would be difficult to get Cornwall to warm to the idea. Nonetheless, I took the view that this was about the governance and constitution of Cornwall Council, and it was important that the council and its elected councillors were given the space and time to run a consultation, let the debate take place and then reach a decision about where the Cornish consensus lay at the end. Linda Taylor and her cabinet have done just that, setting out the case but listening carefully to what they heard from Cornish people and responding accordingly, and they should be given great credit for doing so.

The important thing now is that we all throw our efforts into pursuing an enhanced Tier 2 deal with additional

powers for Cornwall but without the need for a change in governance, which is what the Cornish people would like.

> County Hall, Truro