Published just before the summer recess, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill sets out the government’s plans for Strategic Authorities and other issues that are of interest to local authorities around the country. The Bill builds upon the English Devolution White Paper (2024), and signals a major shake-up for local government. In this post, I take a deeper look at what the Bill covers as well as its implications*.
The aim of the Bill
Currently, the local government landscape is quite chaotic. Significant financial constraints, complex multi-layer governance structures, failing public services, and a mish-mash of devolution deals across the country to name but a few challenges. With this in mind, Westminster has decided to try and do something about it.
As the name of the Bill suggests, the government see devolving decision-making powers to regions and councils as the solution. Local governments will receive much greater responsibilities in areas such as local economic growth, transport and planning, who can hopefully tailor these decisions much more closely to the needs of their areas than a centralised power can.
As Jim McMahon OBE MP stated in the accompanying press release, which can be found here:
“For too long power and opportunity has been concentrated in Westminster and Whitehall while the local councils millions rely on have been frustrated and diminished. This failed approach has held back growth across our country for far too long. Local people see this in the job market, on the high street and in their own household security and prosperity.
Devolution begins the work of fixing that, with this Bill delivering freedom to local leaders to make decisions for their local areas in partnership with local communities, unleashing more growth and more opportunities for people as part of our Plan for Change.“
The proposed Bill has real potential to transform local government across the country, and create a simpler model of devolution through the introduction of a standardised framework of the duties and functions of devolved powers.
I’ll finish by covering a few key ideas from the Bill that I find particularly interesting, though I’m sure there are lots more!
New Powers for Strategic Authorities
What counts as a “strategic authority?”
The government is big on their “Strategic Authorities”. These cover a broad range of structures but generally refer to an entity that covers issues that a greater than “local”. I hope that makes sense.
The local government landscape is already very chaotic with a lot of terminology: *ahem* unitary authorities, district councils, combined authorities, borough councils, combined county authorities and more.
My first big plus for the Bill is that it sets out, clearly and simply, what makes a strategic authority and the powers they will possess.
The following entities are eligible to become strategic authorities:
- Combined Authorities (CA): groups of two or more councils in single-tier areas.
- Combined County Authorities (CCA): groups of two or more councils in two-tier areas, where there are upper-level county councils and lower-level district/borough. Members of the CCA must be upper-tier councils.
- The Greater London Authority (GLA)
- Under exception circumstances, a unitary district council or county council can be designated a strategic authority, so long as its boundaries do not fall within an existing strategic authority.
In order to smooth the devolution process and provide clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of strategic authorities, the government has created three levels of devolution.
| Level | which means… |
| Foundation | Available to authorities without a mayor. Limited devolved powers. Included non-mayoral CAs, CCAs and single councils, where approval has been given. |
| Mayoral | Available to authorities with an elected mayor. Greater devolution powers. Mayoral CAs and CCAs. |
| Established Mayoral | Mayoral Strategic Authorities that have met extra governance requirements. They have the greatest range of devolved powers. |
Strategic authorities cannot overlap, and the government is encouraging local authorities to work together to form them, so that everyone in the country is covered by some form of devolution deal.
Now I have got the definitions and bureaucratic processes out the way, what new powers will these strategic authorities have?
The seven core areas of competence
The seven key policy areas that ALL strategic authorities can exercise power over were already mentioned in the White Paper but just to quickly recall, these were:
- Transport and local infrastructure
- Skills and employment support
- Housing and strategic planning
- Economic development and regeneration
- Environment and climate change
- Health, wellbeing and public service reform
- Public safety
So a very broad range of policy areas. Trusting regional powers with these functions sets a strong precedent for deeper, more locally-rooted decision making in the future.
If we take the first area of competence, transport and local infrastructure, strategic authorities will oversee local transport networks. Additionally, they will be required to create a Local Transport Plan that will outline how their transport policies will be implemented.
Regarding skills and employment support, adult education functions will be transferred from central government to strategic authorities, giving them greater discretion on how to use funding provided for this function.
The Bill explains in much greater detail the new roles and responsibilities for strategic authorities. Ultimately, the reforms are about enabling regional leaders to use funds and power in order to support their areas in the best possible way.
Extra powers for Mayoral and Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities
In mayoral strategic authorities, mayors can request to receive additional functions that are normally held by government Ministers, subject to the Minister’s approval. Mayors are also able to convene local partners, where necessary, to address local challenges. These local partners have a duty to respond to the Mayor’s request. Mayors would also have the ability to intervene in decisions made by local authorities, if they are deemed to be of “potential strategic importance”. This could be directly taking over a planning application and determining the outcome themselves.
Established mayoral strategic authorities (ESMAs) take this one step further. The Bill grants ESMAs the “Right to Request”, enabling them, via their mayors, to ask for further devolved powers, within the area of competence. ESMAs are designed to be stronger regional units, that can absorb new powers more easily, without needing new, primary legislation for each transfer of power.
Community empowerment
A second area of interest that I will finish with, regards increasing role of the community. The Bill sets out some provisions, with the aim of giving local people stronger rights over the assets and services that are important to them.
Community Right to Buy
Applicable to England, this is an extension of the “Asset of Community Value” (ACV) scheme, where community groups could designate a building or land with an important social purpose as an ACV. If the owner wanted to sell said asset, there is a 6-month period, where community groups can put together a bid, however, the owner has no requirement to sell to the group at the end of the period.
Under the proposed Community Right to Buy Scheme, community groups will be given the first opportunity to buy the ACV. The period will also be extended to 12 months, in order to give community groups greater time to raise the necessary funds. Again, the owner of an ACV can still sell to another party after the 12-month period expires, but now community groups are in a strengthened position to purchase the asset.
Neighbourhood Governance
Local Authorities are to have a new legal requirement to establish “effective neighbourhood governance”. This aims to bring decision-making closer to communities and neighbourhoods. In essence, local authorities should have a structured way of working with neighbourhoods, beyond town and parish councils.
This section of the Bill is still relatively vague-what exactly makes neighbourhood governance “effective”. Despite this, it sets out the direction the government want to take, but key operational details are still to be clarified.
Thanks for reading!
So that’s the gist of the Bill. Building on from the Devolution White Paper from December 2024, it has smoothed out and added some clarity to the devolution process. I am hopeful that all areas in the country will soon be covered by some form of deal, and that devolved powers can begin to sort out the shortcomings that the country faces!
*I appreciate I’m a month late with this post but I was finishing up my dissertation for my Master’s!
A Local Lens 