UPDATE, Mon 1 March: As expected, the leaders of Trafford and Stockport councils last Friday refused to endorse plans for a Combined Authority for Greater Manchester. All ten councils will vote on the plans later this month.
Remember Economic Prosperity Boards? Just in case you can't quite remember what they are...EPBs are permanent, statutory, binding authorities covering a bunch of local authorities - with pooled responsibility for e.g. transport, planning, skills and employment. Bear with me, this will make sense I promise...
Any City Region can now turn itself into an EPB, after the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act received Royal Assent last November.
EPBs haven't exactly set the sub-regional world on fire. Ministers like John Denham and Rosie Winterton didn't push them very hard. And most councils don't like the idea of a formal lock-in arrangement, they'd rather take the less formal option of voluntary collaboration.
But, as usual, Greater Manchester is leading the way. Richard Leese and co would like to set up a Combined Statutory Authority for Greater Manchester, ideally before the General Election campaign.
They've just been consulting on new proposals for the governance of Greater Manchester - including an Integrated Transport Authority (a bit like Transport for London) and an Economic Prosperity Board. Deadline for consultation responses was Monday this week.
Greater Manchester includes 10 local authorities, and a mixture of political control. One of the big reasons they're going for this Combined Authority is their failure in Dec 2008 to push through congestion charging.
With a single, formal body in place, Greater Manchester would be better able to make strategic decisions on things like transport and skills.
This matters, because - as you can see from the above map - employment rates across most of Greater Manchester are below the national average. And although Greater Manchester is the third biggest City Region - see bubble number 3 (right) - its growth rate is behind Tyne & Wear (bubble 8), and a few others.
The Combined Authority for Greater Manchester isn't in the bag yet. There's still quite a lot of public opposition to this type of move - and it's possible that Tory-run Trafford and a couple of other councils may not want to join the Combined Authority.
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