The deal could mean at least £1.14 billion of funding over 30 years and the opportunity to bring powers and funding from Westminster to make major decisions closer to the heart of our communities.
As part of these plans for an East Midland Combined County Authority we held a public consultation which ended in January and there were 4,869 responses. It was open to residents, businesses, community and voluntary groups, and other organisations in the region – and I expect many of you took part too.
The consultation showed broad support for the devolution proposals with the majority of respondents supporting plans for an East Midlands Combined County Authority. You can read more on the council’s website.
As I said in my last update, this is not about local government reorganisation and no councils will be abolished. It is about getting a fair share for the people of Derbyshire and bringing in more jobs and skills, improving housing and transport, and fundamentally supporting a better quality of life for people in the region, which is something we all strive to do every working day.
Each council will be taking a report through their council meetings to ensure absolute openness and transparency. Our report will be discussed by a Full Council meeting on 22 March.
There is obviously still more to do and the four councils will be working closely together to develop the details of the deal, considering the all the views expressed in the consultation, which will be presented to the government as the next step.
This is a great achievement for Derbyshire and the East Midlands as a whole to get this far. It has involved a huge amount of highly skilled work by a small band of dedicated officers at many levels across our organisation.
I will continue to keep you up to date with these exciting plans as they progress over the coming months.