‘Huge opportunities’ for devolution as Hampshire and Solent Combined County Authority, backed by £1.3bn fund, gets going, says chief executive

Devolution in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight presents “huge opportunities”, according to the chief executive of the region’s new combined authority.

Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority (HSCCA) is holding its inaugural board meeting in Southampton today (Monday), marking the formal start of the new body.

The organisation will take on devolved powers and funding as part of the government’s wider agenda, including an investment fund worth £1.3bn over 32 years.

Chief executive Dr Ruth Adams said the authority had the potential to make a genuine impact by giving local leaders greater control over how money is spent.

Dr Adams, a former deputy chief executive of South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It levers resource and it levers the ability to do things differently.

“It’s not just about getting money out of government. It’s about thinking what will work in a particular context and situation. In South Yorkshire, some of the areas just needed more jobs.

“Sometimes you get government programmes that talk about it’s got to be higher value added jobs and you start to have a discussion that’s really localised to your situation. You start talking through them with government and you start being able to negotiate extra resources based on what matters for you.”

The HSCCA investment fund equates to £44.6m a year, although this will initially be reduced to £17.8m annually until a mayor is elected in May 2028.

Dr Adams said the scale of funding and responsibility could grow quickly, pointing to experience elsewhere where an authority had a £150m programme within three years.

She said: “Some of this is not new money to the region, it was just managed by central government as opposed to local.

“It’s not you are getting £150m on top of what used to be spent but that’s vested in the board of the combined authority to make decisions on and to be local and to be responsive and to have the difficult conversations. That magnitude of scale is not to be sniffed at.”

The board will be made up of members from Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight councils.

Dr Adams said she was keen to put foundations in place and ensure everything was in order behind the scenes while political leaders set the authority’s direction.

She said: “What do you want to be saying to government? What is it you want to do? That relies on us getting the four councils working really closely together with private sector, with universities to really craft something they want to take to government.”

She added: “We need to know what we’re saying to government, what we’re saying overseas. We need to know what we’re saying to businesses. We need to know what we’re say to institutional investors and the banking sector.

“We need to work quickly on what’s going to scale up this region in terms of its ambition, its productivity, its getting people into employment.”

Asked how the region could benefit from devolution, Dr Adams gave examples of defence and tourism,

She said: “We are one of the strongest regions in defence and that’s been a hot topic in government recently with the idea there’s going to be more spending, There is a real opportunity for this region to be one of the few that has a seat around the table with government in defence if we position ourselves to do that.

“We have some strong private sector players who can help us. I do think we’re one of the best regions for visitor economy and that sector is becoming more important in the fiscal devolution agenda. Government has consulted on an overnight visitor levy.

“If that’s not seen as a drain but seen as a tool to reinvest in the assets we’ve got in this region, we will be able to lead the way and demonstrate how we could make sustainable visitor economies work.”