ANALYSIS  ⁄  DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE

City council outsourcing Exeter local government to unaccountable Liveable Exeter Place Board

An Exeter Observer investigation of Liveable Exeter Place Board has found that it is a de facto decision-making and governance body which exercises public functions with the potential to affect everyone who lives and works in Exeter.

Exeter city council  Liveable exeter place board  Sport england local delivery pilot  Liveable exeter  Exeter transport strategy  Citypoint  Marsh barton  Exeter st david's  Local industrial strategy  Exeter development fund  Net zero exeter  Exeter culture  Freedom of information  Democratic deficit  Accountability & transparency 

Last week Exeter Observer published the latest instalment in a series scrutinising the Liveable Exeter Place Board, an unelected and unaccountable body that meets in private, does not publish its discussions or decisions and is taking responsibility for major policies which will determine the city’s future.

It examined the secretive and informal way in which the board’s members are selected and appointed, in contrast with other local public bodies, and exposed similarities with the current Conservative government’s approach to appointments and procurement, the much-criticised “chumocracy”.

Despite Exeter City Council’s failure to respond to freedom of information requests about the activities of Liveable Exeter Place Board, which we continue to challenge, we have gathered evidence which shows that the board is a de facto decision-making and governance body which exercises public functions with the potential to affect everyone who lives and works in Exeter.

Liveable Exeter Place Board agenda October 2020 redacted Liveable Exeter Place Board agenda October 2020 (redacted by information request responder)

The board’s extraordinary reach is reflected in its extensive terms of reference. These were drafted in secret and enacted months before being presented to the council as a fait accompli.

In July 2019 the council’s Executive committee agreed the following recommendation, which was adopted without discussion at a full council meeting two weeks later:

“Council approve[s] the establishment of a board to oversee the Liveable Exeter Garden City programme, the proposed composition of the board and the draft terms of reference be delegated to the CE&GD [Chief Executive & Growth Director] in consultation with the Leader of the Council and be reported back to a future meeting of Executive.”

Eleven months then passed without the presentation of a report on the board’s membership or its terms of reference.

The board had already met seven times when St David’s councillor Diana Moore asked about the missing report at an Executive meeting in June 2020. Council leader Phil Bialyk said: “The original draft terms of reference agreed by Council have not been amended in any meaningful way. Hence we have not reported back to Executive”.

His response neither addressed the issue of the board’s membership nor the fact that the Council had never agreed its terms of reference.

However the board then did change its terms of reference, at its meeting the following month, when it decided to take over governance of the Exeter & Cranbrook Sport England local delivery pilot. The paper proposing this change was dated the same day as the meeting at which the council leader had said no changes had been made.

The proposal to replace the original Sport England programme board with the Liveable Exeter Place Board described the latter as “the driving force behind the recovery process for the city”. It said: “Liveable Exeter Place Board … defines what needs to be done … has overall responsibility and determines policy, strategy, parameters and resource requirements. It maintains a common purpose, assesses options and evaluates progress.”

This decision was not reported to the city council’s Executive until September 2020, two months later, when the Executive was also presented, for the first time, with the board’s (by then extended) membership.

By this time the board had met on nine occasions and discussed a wide range of topics, including Exeter Vision 2040, which forms part of the city council’s corporate plan, the Liveable Exeter property development scheme for 12,000 new dwellings in the city, Devon County Council’s Exeter Transport Strategy 2020-30, the COVID-19 test and trace programme and the redevelopment plans for CityPoint (aka East Gate), Marsh Barton industrial estate and the area around St David’s station.

At subsequent meetings the board discussed the Exeter City Fund (a plan to sell hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of public sector assets to finance the Liveable Exeter property development scheme), the Arts Council England Cultural Compact and Exeter City of Literature, a “potential opportunity to deliver enhanced recreational and natural opportunities along the Exe Estuary” and the delivery of the Net Zero Exeter plan by Exeter City Futures.

In March this year it approved the development of a business case for an Exeter city centre “innovation district” intended to help promote the CityPoint redevelopment, which will involve the demolition of the remaining buildings on Paris Street and Sidwell Street beside the bus station and leisure centre. This decision has yet to appear on a city council meeting agenda.

The board has even discussed how to respond to difficult questions about its membership, role and remit from Exeter Observer, as well as how to deal with press enquiries in future. The plan was for the city council to release a “brief, high-level statement” after each board meeting from December 2020 onwards, however only one such statement has since been published.

It said that the meeting included remarks by the chair and a presentation on the city’s cultural strategy but says nothing about the meeting’s six other substantive items of business.

CityPoint redevelopment scheme drawing

CityPoint redevelopment scheme drawing

Perhaps most significantly of all, the board also oversaw the development of the city’s “Building Exeter Back Better” pandemic recovery plan.

In June 2020, the city council’s Executive was presented with an initial draft of this plan, which ran to just over two pages in length.

The council leader, Phil Bialyk, said that “all members would be fully informed via Executive and Council through further reports and that there remained appropriate mechanisms for the plan to be considered through the council’s scrutiny process.”

A completed draft of this plan was ready for discussion by the time the board met in October 2020. The covering email which was sent to board members with the meeting agenda and papers beforehand included a request “not to share the draft recovery plan beyond yourselves at this time and until the board has had the opportunity to review and endorse the document.”

The board approved the plan in principle, but also asked the project director, who is an Exeter City Council employee, to make some amendments, particularly to the “scale” of the plan’s spending priorities. The project director agreed to review these details “prior to presentation to ECC’s Executive”.

By the time the plan was presented to the council’s Executive, in November 2020, a month after the Liveable Exeter Place Board meeting which had approved it, it was 80 pages long and outlined more than £500 million in spending priorities.

No interim reports had been presented to city council members via Executive or Council, and at no point had the plan been considered through the council’s “scrutiny process”.

Liveable Exeter Place Board minutes December 2020 redacted Liveable Exeter Place Board minutes December 2020 (redacted by information request responder)

The report accompanying the pandemic recovery plan said the Liveable Exeter Place Board had “endorsed” and “adopted” it, and its development had been “co-ordinated by council officers, with input from other key city stakeholders.”

In fact just four city council officers had been tasked with co-ordinating seven working groups, each of which was chaired by a Liveable Exeter Place Board member, with input from just under 100 stakeholders in all.

It did not explain why the board had, in effect, signed off on the plan (complete with requested amendments) before its presentation to the council’s Executive for approval.

Throughout the plan development process the city council used words such as “endorsed”, “adopted” and “co-ordinated” in this context. Earlier this year it described the board as having “shaped” Exeter’s recovery plan.

However it sometimes fails to filter out what amount to Freudian slips in its statements about the board’s true status.

In June last year it said that council officers were “leading the work on the recovery plan” then, a week later, that the plan’s development was being “led by the Liveable Exeter Place Board”.

Both these things cannot be true at the same time, in the same way as the city council cannot be taking decisions that the Liveable Exeter Place Board has already made.

The transformation of what was initially envisaged as a steering group for a major housing programme into a multi-purpose body overseeing Exeter’s post-pandemic recovery as well as its transport, infrastructure, economic, investment, decarbonisation, health and cultural strategies, while acting as a single point of contact with government and its departments and planning £500 million of expenditure, must surely constitute a “meaningful” change to its terms of reference and consequent reach.

However whether the Liveable Exeter Place Board is a public sector body to which the normal rules of governance should apply is less a question of semantics and more a question of whether it meets government definitions of what constitutes such bodies.

The council maintains that the board “is not an Exeter City Council board”. This is correct in the strict sense that Liveable Exeter Place Board was not formally constituted by a resolution of the Council.

It is nevertheless likely that Liveable Exeter Place Board is a public sector body.

Entities are classified as public or private sector according to Office of National Statistics criteria focussed on the level of direct or indirect control over the entity being classified and who has that control. Key indicators include:

  • the ability to appoint those in control, or those who determine the policy of the entity
  • a right to be consulted over such appointments, or to have a veto over appointments
  • the provision of funding accompanied by rights of control over how that funding is spent
  • a general right to control the day-to-day running of the body.

Once a body is classified as public sector, it is allocated to a sub-sector based on its characteristics. The local government sub-sector “includes those types of public administration that only cover a specific locality and any non-market bodies controlled and mainly financed by them”.

Exeter City Council’s chief executive officer and leader drew up the board’s terms of reference and determined (and continue to determine) its membership, as we saw last week.

Exeter City Council provides the board’s secretariat, publishes its website complete with council contact email address and phone number and responds on its behalf to enquiries from the press and others.

And Exeter City Council finances Liveable Exeter Place Board, as per the board-related expenditure recorded in its corporate accounts.

Notwithstanding the council’s semantic sophistry around the board’s true role, and whatever the theology of the board’s status, its actions and their impacts ultimately speak louder than words.

Nothing in the evidence we have so far gathered has changed our view that Liveable Exeter Place Board is a de facto decision-making and governance body which exercises public functions and constitutes the outsourcing of Exeter local government.

Many of the board’s members have significant land and property interests, while much of Exeter’s civil society, its large public sector workforce and those who are on the wrong end of changes that are being made in the city remain outside the room.

The board’s proposals, discussions and conclusions have the potential to impact the lives of everyone in Exeter and beyond, yet it is unelected, meets in private, does not publish its agendas, reports or minutes, and is entirely unaccountable.

Exeter Observer continues to investigate exactly what goes on in Liveable Exeter Place Board meetings and with what consequences, despite Exeter City Council’s unforthcoming stance on freedom of information, and will continue to publish its findings in the public interest.


 is editor of Exeter Observer and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.

 is a contributing editor of Exeter Observer.

Exeter in brief
Exeter in brief

A MET OFFICE survey which asked a representative sample of the public about climate crisis action has found that 65% of respondents think we should be doing more to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The conversion of BEAUFORT HOUSE, a 3,000m2 five storey office block on New North Road, to a 107-bed student accommodation facility has been approved by the city council.

The INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE has published its Sixth Assessment synthesis report, bringing together its three previous working group reports to deliver a “final warning” as the world approaches irrevocable damage caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions which can only be averted with deep emissions cuts.

Meanwhile council-run VISIT EXETER is promoting tourist visits to Exeter by plane from Scotland to Exeter Airport. Its greenhouse gas emissions inventory excludes aviation emissions from the city’s carbon footprint.

EXETER CITY COUNCIL has lost an appeal against its decision that an additional bedroom in a student house in Devonshire Place was unlawful. Seven students have occupied the house, which costs more than £6,000 per month to rent, since 2020.

A MET OFFICE survey which asked a representative sample of the public about climate crisis action has found that 65% of respondents think we should be doing more to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The conversion of BEAUFORT HOUSE, a 3,000m2 five storey office block on New North Road, to a 107-bed student accommodation facility has been approved by the city council.

The INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE has published its Sixth Assessment synthesis report, bringing together its three previous working group reports to deliver a “final warning” as the world approaches irrevocable damage caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions which can only be averted with deep emissions cuts.

Meanwhile council-run VISIT EXETER is promoting tourist visits to Exeter by plane from Scotland to Exeter Airport. Its greenhouse gas emissions inventory excludes aviation emissions from the city’s carbon footprint.

EXETER CITY COUNCIL has lost an appeal against its decision that an additional bedroom in a student house in Devonshire Place was unlawful. Seven students have occupied the house, which costs more than £6,000 per month to rent, since 2020.

More Analysis
Devon County Council National Bus Strategy Bus Services Improvement Plan cover image

TRANSPORT & MOBILITY

Future of Devon bus services being decided behind closed doors

Devon County Council does not want the public to hear whether local service improvements are going according to plan.

Exeter City Council community grants budgets bar chart

COMMUNITY & SOCIETY

Council slashes community grants but splashes cash on paddling pools in contested wards

Exeter grants programme budget reduced from £425,000 to £15,000 leaving hundreds of grassroots groups out in the cold as the impact of borrowing takes its toll and council fails to consult on budget cuts despite auditor recommendation.

Lottery graphic

COMMUNITY & SOCIETY

Council lottery operator to take cut from local charitable donations

Decision to promote gambling as "incentivised giving" plays down risks without assessing potential impacts or evidencing claimed benefits, disrupting relationships between community and voluntary sector organisations and supporters.

All Analysis
News
Local authority economic activity levels change 2011-2021 census

ECONOMY & ENTERPRISE

Decline in Exeter economic activity levels among largest in country

Census figures also show population increasing at nearly six times rate of job creation over past decade while healthcare, wholesale/retail and teaching make up nearly half of all employment, reflecting low pay and productivity.

Special educational needs and disabilities protesters at County Hall

COMMUNITY & SOCIETY

Devon County Council charged with "relentless institutional failings" in SEND children's services provision

Children with special educational needs and disabilities protest alongside parents at County Hall as Ofsted monitoring continues to find serious unresolved issues and key areas that require significant change.

Exeter empty and second homes by council tax band October 2022 bar chart

PLANNING & PLACE

Exeter has more empty and second homes than built in city in past two years

Council tax premium proposals that aim to raise additional revenue from underused housing stock might also encourage return to residential occupancy.

All News
Comment
Exeter City Council in session at Exeter Guildhall

DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE

Exeter City Council's approach to decision-making is damaging local democracy

Separation of powers and transparency provisions intended to safeguard public interest being subverted while council defies auditor over loss-making company.

Co-living - discover a new way to rent

PLANNING & PLACE

Council development levy changes are insufficiently evidenced and don't meet city infrastructure needs

Exeter City Council and Liveable Exeter partners impose faulty typology driven by policy objectives while ignoring new local plan, evidence base and statutory funding statement and excluding residential and retail charges from review.

Exeter city centre retail area map 2017 and 2022 CDRC data

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Is the grass really greener in Exeter city centre?

Academic research placing Exeter retail area at top of green space table was nationally reported, locally misrepresented then repurposed as booster fuel by local politicians overlooking study's social justice focus.

All Comment
On the agenda

A public exhibition of revised redevelopment plans for the WATER LANE area is being held at Haven Banks Outdoor Education Centre from 10am-7pm on Friday 24 March and from 10am-4pm on Saturday 25 March. Around 1,000 high density housing units, including student accommodation and built to rent flats, are expected on the brownfield site. The information on display will also be available on the developer’s website.

The consulation on the draft DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for Exeter, which is already nearly six years late, closes at the end of March.

Plans to redevelop the derelict COWLEY BRIDGE ROAD Johnsons cleaners site to provide a total of 350 beds of student accommodation in four blocks up to six storeys tall have been submitted for approval by the city council. The laundry facility was badly damaged by fire three years ago and was demolished last year.

A public consultation on a DEVON, CORNWALL & ISLES OF SCILLY CLIMATE ADAPTATION PLAN which will attempt to minimise the impact of climate change on the South West peninsula will be held from 8 May before a final version is adopted during the autumn, four and a half years after Devon County Council convened the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group to “act now to tackle [the] climate emergency”.

Plans for an ultra-high density build-to-rent development at HAVEN BANKS have been revised to rely on a Welcome Street bridge being built over the railway in response to Environment Agency flood risk objections.

EXETER CHIEFS rugby club has applied to vary a planning restriction imposed when it was granted permission to double the capacity of its Sandy Park stadium in 2012 which currently prevents its use as a music or performance venue. The application follows the approval of a licensing variation to allow its use as a venue for boxing, wrestling, theatre, film and music events on 30 January.

PINHOE COMMUNITY HUB has resubmitted its application for a new building at Station Road playing fields following the lapse of the previous permission, granted three years ago.

SOUTH WEST WATER is consulting on its draft Water Resources Management Plan, which sets out how it intends to ensure a secure regional water supply and manage its environmental impact, until 19 May.

Detailed plans for the Honiton Road MOOR EXCHANGE RETAIL PARK have been submitted for approval. Outline planning permission for the development was granted two years ago.

The UNIVERSITY OF EXETER has submitted detailed plans for its 1,700 bed West Park redevelopment of 50,000m2 of student accommodation. They include ten storey blocks which are two storeys taller than agreed when outline permission was granted in May 2021.

On our radar
All topics

ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY   AIR QUALITY AIR QUALITY AIR QUALITY   COP26 COP26 COP26   COVID-19 COVID-19 COVID-19   CITYPOINT CITYPOINT CITYPOINT   CLIFTON HILL SPORTS CENTRE CLIFTON HILL SPORTS CENTRE CLIFTON HILL SPORTS CENTRE   CLIMATE CRISIS CLIMATE CRISIS CLIMATE CRISIS   CLIMATE CRISIS CLIMATE CRISIS CLIMATE CRISIS   CO-LIVING CO-LIVING CO-LIVING   CONGESTION CONGESTION CONGESTION   COUNCIL TAX COUNCIL TAX COUNCIL TAX   CROWN ESTATE CROWN ESTATE CROWN ESTATE   CYCLING & WALKING CYCLING & WALKING CYCLING & WALKING   DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT   DEVON & CORNWALL POLICE DEVON & CORNWALL POLICE DEVON & CORNWALL POLICE   DEVON CARBON PLAN DEVON CARBON PLAN DEVON CARBON PLAN   DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL   DEVON PENSION FUND DEVON PENSION FUND DEVON PENSION FUND   EAST DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL EAST DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL EAST DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL   EXETER AIRPORT EXETER AIRPORT EXETER AIRPORT   EXETER CATHEDRAL EXETER CATHEDRAL EXETER CATHEDRAL   EXETER CITY COUNCIL EXETER CITY COUNCIL EXETER CITY COUNCIL   EXETER CITY FUTURES EXETER CITY FUTURES EXETER CITY FUTURES   EXETER CITY LIVING EXETER CITY LIVING EXETER CITY LIVING   EXETER COLLEGE EXETER COLLEGE EXETER COLLEGE   EXETER CULTURE EXETER CULTURE EXETER CULTURE   EXETER DEVELOPMENT FUND EXETER DEVELOPMENT FUND EXETER DEVELOPMENT FUND   EXETER LIVE BETTER EXETER LIVE BETTER EXETER LIVE BETTER   EXETER LOCAL PLAN EXETER LOCAL PLAN EXETER LOCAL PLAN   EXETER PHOENIX EXETER PHOENIX EXETER PHOENIX   EXETER PRIDE EXETER PRIDE EXETER PRIDE   EXETER SCIENCE PARK EXETER SCIENCE PARK EXETER SCIENCE PARK   EXETER ST DAVID'S EXETER ST DAVID'S EXETER ST DAVID'S   EXETER TRANSPORT STRATEGY EXETER TRANSPORT STRATEGY EXETER TRANSPORT STRATEGY   EXETER CITY CENTRE EXETER CITY CENTRE EXETER CITY CENTRE   EXTINCTION REBELLION EXETER EXTINCTION REBELLION EXETER EXTINCTION REBELLION EXETER   FREEDOM OF INFORMATION FREEDOM OF INFORMATION FREEDOM OF INFORMATION   FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE EXETER FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE EXETER FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE EXETER   GENERAL ELECTIONS GENERAL ELECTIONS GENERAL ELECTIONS   GUILDHALL GUILDHALL GUILDHALL   HARLEQUINS HARLEQUINS HARLEQUINS   HEART OF THE SOUTH WEST LEP HEART OF THE SOUTH WEST LEP HEART OF THE SOUTH WEST LEP   HOUSING CRISIS HOUSING CRISIS HOUSING CRISIS   LGBTQIA+ LGBTQIA+ LGBTQIA+   LIVEABLE EXETER PLACE BOARD LIVEABLE EXETER PLACE BOARD LIVEABLE EXETER PLACE BOARD   LIVEABLE EXETER LIVEABLE EXETER LIVEABLE EXETER   LOCAL INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY LOCAL INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY LOCAL INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY   LOCAL ELECTIONS LOCAL ELECTIONS LOCAL ELECTIONS   MAKETANK MAKETANK MAKETANK   MARSH BARTON MARSH BARTON MARSH BARTON   MET OFFICE MET OFFICE MET OFFICE   MID DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL MID DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL MID DEVON DISTRICT COUNCIL   NET ZERO EXETER NET ZERO EXETER NET ZERO EXETER   NORTHERNHAY GARDENS NORTHERNHAY GARDENS NORTHERNHAY GARDENS   OXYGEN HOUSE OXYGEN HOUSE OXYGEN HOUSE   PARIS STREET PARIS STREET PARIS STREET   PARKING PARKING PARKING   PENINSULA TRANSPORT PENINSULA TRANSPORT PENINSULA TRANSPORT   PLANNING POLICY PLANNING POLICY PLANNING POLICY   PRINCESSHAY PRINCESSHAY PRINCESSHAY   PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT   PUBLIC CONSULTATION PUBLIC CONSULTATION PUBLIC CONSULTATION   PUBLIC HEALTH PUBLIC HEALTH PUBLIC HEALTH   PUBLIC REALM PUBLIC REALM PUBLIC REALM   PUBLIC TRANSPORT PUBLIC TRANSPORT PUBLIC TRANSPORT   RAMM RAMM RAMM   REFUSE & RECYCLING REFUSE & RECYCLING REFUSE & RECYCLING   RETROFIT RETROFIT RETROFIT   RIVERSIDE VALLEY PARK RIVERSIDE VALLEY PARK RIVERSIDE VALLEY PARK   ROYAL DEVON NHS TRUST ROYAL DEVON NHS TRUST ROYAL DEVON NHS TRUST   SIDWELL STREET SIDWELL STREET SIDWELL STREET   SOUTH WEST EXETER EXTENSION SOUTH WEST EXETER EXTENSION SOUTH WEST EXETER EXTENSION   SOUTH WEST WATER SOUTH WEST WATER SOUTH WEST WATER   SOUTHERNHAY SOUTHERNHAY SOUTHERNHAY   SPORT ENGLAND LOCAL DELIVERY PILOT SPORT ENGLAND LOCAL DELIVERY PILOT SPORT ENGLAND LOCAL DELIVERY PILOT   ST SIDWELL'S COMMUNITY CENTRE ST SIDWELL'S COMMUNITY CENTRE ST SIDWELL'S COMMUNITY CENTRE   ST SIDWELL'S POINT ST SIDWELL'S POINT ST SIDWELL'S POINT   STAGECOACH SOUTH WEST STAGECOACH SOUTH WEST STAGECOACH SOUTH WEST   STUDENT ACCOMMODATION STUDENT ACCOMMODATION STUDENT ACCOMMODATION   TEIGNBRIDGE DISTRICT COUNCIL TEIGNBRIDGE DISTRICT COUNCIL TEIGNBRIDGE DISTRICT COUNCIL   UNIVERSITY OF EXETER UNIVERSITY OF EXETER UNIVERSITY OF EXETER  

More stories