The much anticipated English Devolution White Paper was finally published this week [n.b. 16/12/2024]. This marks a significant step toward next year’s English Devolution Bill which will deliver the new Government’s vision for decentralising power to drive economic growth in England.
As expected, the paper includes major proposals to reform local government outside of the country’s main urban areas. District and County councils face uncertainty, with encouragement to merge into unitary authorities serving over 500,000 people. Devolution will be dependent on these new unitary authorities coming together to form combined authorities with elected mayors. This could have huge implications for the East of England.
The arguments for devolution and reform
England is one of the most centralised countries in the developed world. Many believe that our governance structures are a major contributing factor to economic stagnation, regional inequalities, and declining trust in politics. Devolution aims to empower local leaders and institutions, to drive economic growth, public service delivery, and community trust. Mayoral leadership is prioritised to ensure visible, accountable governance.
By reorganising Local Government, the White Paper seeks to unblock the path to devolution in places where two-tier authorities have not been able to agree a way forward. It is expected that streamlined governance through unitary councils will lead to better accountability, cost savings, and efficiency. But there are wider considerations in terms of making government less complicated for citizens and businesses to navigate, as well as integrating services tailored to local needs.
The Devolution Framework
The Devolution Framework proposes three forms of strategic authorities, including:
Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities will gain new powers, such as running suburban rail services and access to consolidated funding pots. A number of exiting MCAs including Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the North East, South Yorkshire, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire have met the eligibility criteria to apply for this tier of devolution. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough would be expected to follow.
New Mayoral Combined Authorities including those more recently established and those that will follow.
Foundational Strategic Authorities: Areas without mayors or devolved governance layers.
All Strategic Authorities will oversee transport, adult skills, housing, economic development, environment, and public safety. However, Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) will have more significant powers, including access to Integrated Settlements (flexible funding for priorities like housing, transport, skills and employment).
New powers will be formalised through a new statutory framework, replacing the “deal” based approach that has characterised the system to date with an intention to “devolve by default”.
The White Paper strongly favours elected mayors for all areas of England, shifting power from local councils to mayors, removing the need for unanimous council approval for policies.
Long-term funding remains unresolved pending the Comprehensive Spending Review. The paper does not propose new revenue-raising powers (e.g., tourist taxes) for Mayors. Further Strategic Authorities will often “work with” rather than “control” other government agencies, like Homes England and Great British Railways, emphasising cooperation over autonomy.
Geography and governance
For most areas, reorganisation will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more, but there may be exceptions to ensure new structures make sense for an area, including for devolution, and decisions will be on a case-by-case basis. There are already a number of unitary councils in the East of England, such as Peterborough, Luton, and Central Bedfordshire, but none with a population of 500,000. This has led to speculation that some existing unitaries may be enlarged. It would also appear to rule out unitary status for the cities of Norwich and Cambridge, although the White Paper does provide room for exceptions. Politically, Labour risks losing councillors and councils in smaller towns and cities while prominent mayors could represent other parties, including Conservative, Reform, or LibDem candidates.
New Mayoral Combined Authorities are expected to have a population of 1-5 million or more. This suggests that new unitary authorities in Suffolk and Norfolk would be expected to form a single combined authority. In areas with two tiers of local government, before moving to a single tier, the Government will establish Combined County Authorities but not Combined Authorities. In those cases, while districts will not be constituent members, the government expects effective levels of collaboration to be demonstrated between constituent members and district councils, especially where the district council covers the primary city or economy in that county.
There is little reference to hyper-local issues or detail about governance below the new unitary and mayoral levels, although the paper states that Government will rewire the relationship between town and parish councils and principal Local Authorities, strengthening expectations on engagement and community voice. Stronger community arrangements - how councils engage at a neighbourhood or area level - will be a requirement of reorganisation.
There is little reference to either regional or pan-regional arrangements, although the paper suggests that places will be required to work across regions where a larger geographic scale is needed to coordinate on strategic issues. It is expected that elected Mayors and Combined Authorities will lead regional collaboration. Government intends to support Mayors in this process by creating convening bodies whose purpose, priorities and membership are decided at a regional level and working with existing regional organisations such as Sub-National Transport bodies.
Housing and planning
It is clear from the White Paper that the Government sees devolution and reform as a necessary step in overcoming the obstacles to development and particularly house building.
All areas, with or without a Strategic Authority, will have a duty to produce a Spatial Development Strategy, which will be adopted with support from a majority of constituent members. The primary intention of this policy is to enable more homes to be built.
In Mayoral Strategic Authorities, Mayors will be empowered to develop and propose the Spatial Development Strategy for their areas, working closely with Strategic Authority members. In cases of deadlock, the Mayor will have a casting vote, and where the threshold for agreement cannot be reached, Mayors will be able to refer the proposal to the Secretary of State for decision.
Conclusion
The White Paper is a welcome step toward devolution and reform of local government. It makes a number of progressive steps towards further devolution, building on the previous Government's incremental approach. In grasping the nettle of local government reform, the paper clearly takes account of the failure of two-tier areas to agree deals and moves towards a simpler, more streamlined model of local government. The Government must be commended for their bravery in acting where previous governments have been only too happy to duck the difficult decision.
However, the paper falls short of delivering the radical shift in devolving the powers and resources needed to reverse decades of centralisation. If the Government is serious about empowering Mayors to build more homes, it begs the question: why Homes England has not been devolved? The complete absence of fiscal devolution will also be frustrating for existing Mayors. It can only be hoped that these powers will follow for the Established Strategic Authorities.
