If you have attempted to read the report which will go before Bradford Council tomorrow on the potential creation of a Combined Authority including the five major councils in West Yorkshire, then you probably deserve some kind of medal.

The report – and it is available to view at bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/ regeneration/combined_authority should you have nothing pressing to do over the next 24 hours – is not what anyone would class as “light reading”. You probably won’t want to take it on your holidays with you.

To the untutored eye it is a vision-swimming mess of acronyms, council-ese and phrases such as “there will be a need to prioritise some transitional costs if the step-change set out on governance and the delivery of an ambitious vision for growth, jobs and connectivity is to be achieved...” And that’s only half of that particular sentence.

But despite all this, it’s something that is pretty important. What it’s all about is bringing together the councils in Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, Wakefield, Leeds – and possibly York, though that’s still something under discussion – and creating what we can call in headline-friendly terms a “super-council”.

If all five councils vote yes to the idea – and Bradford’s vote is tomorrow – then the West Yorkshire Combined Authority will come into existence on April 1 2014. But what does all this really mean?

The report itself is as dull as ditchwater. But then again, it’s designed for councillors, whose minds work differently to yours and mine. But initially it seems there will be two main points which the West Yorkshire Combined Authority will busy itself with: Transport: If all goes according to plan there will be a central pot of a cool £1 billion for all kinds of transport matters – roads, rail, new stations, public transport... Individual councils will be able to keep back some of the money they currently get to fix the pothole at the top of your road and things like that, but for major projects Bradford will have to bid for cash from this centrally held fund.

On the need for this the report says: “Road congestion and rail overcrowding leading to poor connectivity and access to jobs within and between districts and to markets has been holding back our economic prosperity.”

The West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority, which keeps your buses running, will cease to exist and will instead be subsumed by the new West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

This means that the 400-odd staff who work for them would be transferred to the new authority.

Economic Development and Regeneration: This would put into the control of the Combined Authority the Leeds City Region Economic Investment Fund of £400 million and acting as a single body to attract economic investment from all and sundry, be that the Single Local Growth Fund or the various European Union cash bonanzas which come up for grabs.

According to the report: “The economic climate remains challenging. Recovery has been slow and hesitant and particular sectors remain at well below capacity (eg construction)... Without co-ordinated and well-targeted locally determined investment, these issues will remain unaddressed.”

So that’s the basic rationale behind the whole thing.

But who is going to run this Combined Authority? The Council Leaders from the five member authorities will be on the board – and that means Labour’s Coun David Green from Bradford, as well as councillors in opposition to the ruling parties on each council, and representatives of the Local Enterprise Partnership, alongside a “politically balanced” committee dedicated to the transport bits. There will also be a separate scrutiny committee to ensure that the main board is doing its job properly.

And no, because you were wondering, the council leaders won’t be getting any extra money for sitting on this new board.

So should all the councils vote for the Combined Authority would we all wake up on April 1 next year and find everything’s different?

Coun David Green offers a rather hesitant “no”. He adds: “There could possibly be a precept for the transport issue.”

Which, as everyone knows, means that there could be a little something banged on your Council Tax to take into consideration this £1bn transport pot. But according to Coun Green, this transport pot is needed to fund the massive infrastructure works to keep Bradford and the rest of West Yorkshire moving.

Politically, the ruling Labour group at Bradford Council is backing the idea of the Combined Authority. Politically, the opposition groups oppose it. Conservative group leader Glen Miller, at the last count, said the Tories were “undecided” which way they will vote tomorrow. His concern is that Bradford will put in more than it gets out, echoing the long-term complaints, on a wider level, of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Coun Jeanette Sunderland of the Liberal Democrats is worried that Bradford will have to cut services to pay for transport schemes which will benefit other authorities.

Coun Green, though, says he wouldn’t be supporting the scheme – “with caveats”, he says – if he didn’t think it would ultimately benefit Bradford. He says: “Eric Pickles says that councils have to work together to save money. I am in favour of joint working to improve services.”

The biggest suspicion about the Combined Authority will be that Bradford becomes the poor relation to Leeds, who will suck up all the money and leave us the crumbs from their table. Coun Green heaves a sigh. “Look,” he says. “There isn’t a border post at the Thornbury roundabout. 10,000 people travel to and from Leeds and Bradford every day for work. At the moment different authorities are funding things which, by putting them in a Combined Authority, could make a better connection, give better benefits.

“There are five local authorities involved in the Combined Authority. They’re probably worrying in Wakefield about losing out to Bradford, they’re probably saying in Kirklees that they might not get as much money as Calderdale.”

That will be Coun Green’s job on the Combined Authority board – as Coun Glen Miller says, “he would have to fight robustly to ensure we get fair returns.” It’s a fight Coun Green evidently thinks he can take on.

However, there might well not be “instant returns” on our investment in the Combined Authority. Coun Green: “I’m not saying that every year Bradford will get out of the funding 30 per cent of the money or whatever it is people feel that we are due, but over the period Bradford will get benefit from it.”

The Combined Authority relies on all the prospective member councils, and the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority, saying yes to the proposals. It has to be unanimous, or it won’t happen.

And somewhat interestingly, Bradford is the first full council meeting to discuss it. Theoretically, if Bradford says no tomorrow night, then the whole shooting match is off. There’s no point in councillors at Leeds, Kirklees, Calderdale or Wakefield even bothering to turn up.

“I don’t think that will happen,” says Alun Ireland at Kirklees Council, who has the task of fielding public relations queries for the Combined Authority project. But it could happen, surely? By the democratic process under which all our local authorities are governed? If Bradford says no, the Combined Authority must be dead in the water?

“If they say no there would be further talks,” says Alun. Presumably this means that points of negotiation might be on the table if individual councils decide to try to scupper the plan. It sounds like we’re too far down the road on this for it to be allowed to die without a fight. And given that Labour has the majority on Bradford Council and supports the Combined Authority, then a “no” vote is, as Alun says, unlikely.

If Bradford says yes, then it is the turn of the other four authorities to vote over the next couple of weeks, culminating in the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority having its say on July 26. You might think that the ITA saying yes when it is going to be dissolved under the new regime is essentially a turkey voting for Christmas, but the transport body has already tacitly agreed to the whole idea.

Alun says: “After all the votes the decision is then passed to the Secretary of State to approve the creation of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. If everything goes according to plan we would expect to have a ‘shadow authority’ in place later this year ahead of it coming into being on April 1 next year.”

So if this is a super-council, what are its super-powers? And what is likely to be its Kryptonite?

A consultation on the Combined Authority was carried out among residents of all five local authorities involved between April 26 and May 27 this year to find out what people liked about the idea and what they were worried about.

Here are some of the positives that people thought could result: l Enhanced bargaining power and ability to bid for funding, compared to that of individual councils.

l The opportunity for regionally-based control and decision making.

l The opportunity for integrated planning, decision making and communications on cross-boundary issues.

l Positive change in the way transport and infrastructure projects which go across the region are delivered.

And the worries?

l Another layer of bureaucracy added to existing local and regional arrangements.

l Accountability of the new Combined Authority – who does it answer to? Who do we complain to if we don’t like it?

l Skewed benefits – big, prestige projects get all the cash. The old argument of Bradford losing out to Leeds.

What’s that? You didn’t know about this consultation process? It seems you’re not alone.

There is a population of 2.2 million people across the five metropolitan districts of West Yorkshire.

There were 104 (that’s one hundred and four) formal responses to the consultation, leading to the fourth main criticism of the Combined Authority: “several respondents commented that the consultation exercise could have been more widely publicised and more information about the proposals provided to enable local residents and businesses to participate fully.”

Invitations to respond were included on all the websites of the relevant authorities, but unless you were specifically looking for the form you would probably have missed it. Now it’s too late and the decision on whether we wake up on April 1 2014 as part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority is in the lap of the gods - or at least Bradford Council.

Coun Green says resolutely: “We won’t notice any difference in the way Bradford Council is run as of April 1 2014.”

There is more, however. “In 2018, though, or some time further in the future, we might be seeing other services coming under the West Yorkshire Combined Authority,” he says.

So it looks like, if all goes according to the plans of those involved in the setting up scheme, it’s going to have a bigger and bigger impact on all our lives over subsequent years. It all rather depends on how Bradford Council votes tomorrow, but it seems like the West Yorkshire Combined Authority is coming – ready or not.