Bradford is considering joining forces with Leeds, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield to create a super authority on transport and regeneration matters. Public consultation ends today.

There is public money available for combined authorities. The last Labour Government under Gordon Brown introduced the Local Democracy Economic Development and Construction Act in 2009.

This allows local authorities to voluntarily assume the role of an integrated transport transport authority and regeneration board, somewhat reminiscent of regional government agencies like Yorkshire Forward, scrapped by the Government in 2010.

Combined authorities have to be approved by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP.

As the Telegraph & Argus reported earlier this week, a combined West Yorkshire authority could mean local taxpayers being forced to pay an “extra precept in their annual council tax.” The news prompted the following response from T&A reader John Pashley: “This supererogatory authority will be measured by the amount of money spent, rather than value for money, for it will probably be run by the remnants of the discredited cliques who ran Yorkshire Forward and Bradford Centre Regeneration, aided and abetted by those senior council officers who live elsewhere and do not pay our council tax.

“The question that needs to be asked is who is going to benefit?”

The T&A put this question, and others concerning council finances, to Bradford Council leader David Green. He said: “In the long run, the people of Bradford will benefit. Infrastructure and transport are vital to the investment, employment and recreational future of the district. It is a long-term plan not a short-term fix.

“Precepts will be set as part of the budget if the scheme goes ahead. Currently it is the intention to use existing resources as much as possible and accountability will be through the members of the combined authority.”

Government figures published last month reveal that these “existing resources”, in terms of the cash reserves of Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield, Bradford and Leeds, are considerable, totalling more than £373.3m.

A 23-page report to Bradford Council’s Executive Committee last month from Stuart McKinnon-Evans, the Council’s director of finance, shows revenue reserves of £129m, plus an extra £2.5m in a general contingency budget, £1.15m in unspent grant allocations and £17.9m in capital underspend.

Given this, why should local taxpayers be expected to pay an “extra precept in their council tax”? Councillor Green replied: “The Council does not have an underspend.”

We asked Eric Pickles if he was taking note of the extra precept that West Yorkshire’s cash-rich members of the proposed combined authority would be demanding?

“Yes,” he replied, but declined to explain what else he proposed to do about it.

We already know that his Local Authority and Accountability Amendment Bill, which gets its second reading in the House of Lords next Wednesday, is being brought in to prevent local authorities from hiking up annual council tax bills.

If they want to impose an increase of two per cent or more they will be obliged to put such a demand to a local referendum. Since 1999, test referendum on council spending in Milton Keynes, Bristol and Croydon, have resulted in ‘no’ votes.

Some think that local authorities, faced with implementing Government spending cuts, have sought to get round this by combining together so they can increase taxes through charging extra precepts. We put this question to Councillor Green as well.

He replied that Eric Pickles was likely to “derail himself” as he had already approved the combined authority and the precept powers that go with it, “and now introduces a Bill aimed at blocking the very powers he wants us to have.”

Formally Eric Pickles has done no such thing. But neither has he abolished Labour’s 2009 Act of Parliament permitting combined authorities.

At a time of so-called austerity, in the last financial year nine Bradford Council officers clocked up salaries in excess of £100,000, headed by chief executive Tony Reeves on £227,459.

Yesterday the T&A revealed that City Hall had over the last eight years paid out more than £600,000 in out-of-court settlements to 36 former officers.

Last month, the Council’s Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee concluded in a review of City Hall’s procurement and commissioning procedures that many staff lacked both skill and understanding in negotiating contracts.

Why should the public accept that members of the combined authority will be any better?