Local authorities have been given a greater understanding of how forthcoming devolution and local government reorganisation in England will work, with the publication of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. The Bill follows the publication of the English Devolution White Paper: Power and Partnership: Foundation for Growth, and subsequent public consultation and engagement with local authorities and provides more details about how proposals for devolution and reorganisation will be implemented.

As well as the Bill, Explanatory Notes, Human Rights Memorandum and Impact Assessments being published in Parliament, the Government has also published guidance on the Bill. The guidance explains that the measures in the Bill fall under three broad sections:

• Devolution: These provisions relate to devolution structures, powers of mayors and authorities and routes to devolution.
• Local government: These include provisions relating to the process for local government reorganisation, changes to local authority governance, accountability and effective neighbourhood governance structures.
• Communities: These include provisions to give more power to local authorities to purchase assets of community value and reforms to commercial leases.

Strategic Authorities

The Bill has taken forward the UK Government’s intention that there should be strategic authorities throughout England. The Bill will create in law a new category of authority, the “Strategic Authority”. These will be of the following types:

• Foundation – these are authorities without an elected mayor. They will have limited devolution.
• Mayoral – these are authorities with an elected mayor. They will have greater devolution.
• Established Mayoral – these are mayoral authorities which satisfy additional governance requirements. The Government’s guidance says that these will have access to the broadest range of devolved powers and functions, including the ability to request further devolved powers from the Government.

In London, the Greater London Authority (“GLA”) will be an established mayoral strategic authority. The guidance explains that because the GLA was set up differently to other mayoral strategic authorities and has a different devolution settlement, the powers and duties will be applied to the GLA on a case by case basis. The Bill includes power for the Secretary of State to confer additional functions on the GLA, the Mayor of London and the GLA’s functional bodies.

The Bill will also enable Transport for London to dispose of operational land without the consent of the Secretary of State. This is intended to support regeneration in London by simplifying the process by which operational land is disposed for development.

Devolution Framework of Powers

The Government proposes to introduce a standardised devolution framework of powers, funding commitments and partnership/collaboration arrangements with government. This is intended to provide greater consistency in powers in areas with devolution arrangements.

The Bill also makes provision to support further development of devolution by:

• Creating a power to expand the devolution framework through secondary legislation.
• Enabling specific strategic authorities to pilot devolved powers.
• Giving established mayoral authorities the power to request further powers.

The Bill provides for strategic authorities to have the following areas of competence:

Transport and local infrastructure

Strategic authorities will be the local transport authority for their area and will have oversight of local transport networks. Strategic authorities will be required to produce a local transport plan setting out local transport policies and constituent councils will be required to implement the local transport plan in their area. Strategic authorities will have power to charge a transport levy to their constituent councils and to pay grants to constituent councils to help with the delivery of transport activities.

Mayoral strategic authorities will be required to set up key route networks to ensure strategic oversight of the most important local roads in their area. Mayors will have a power of direction over constituent councils’ use of their local highway and traffic powers on the key route network and a power to set traffic reduction targets on the key route network.

The Bill makes provision for local transport authorities to regulate on-street micromobility schemes through a licensing regime, with the Secretary of State setting minimum standard conditions in order to establish a consistent baseline of operability and safety.

Skills and employment support

Adult education functions will transfer from central Government to strategic authorities. The Adult Skills Fund will fund skills training for eligible adults aged nineteen and above to enable them to gain the skills that they need for work, apprenticeships or further learning. Strategic authorities will have obligations to ensure that learners aged nineteen and over in their area, who are eligible for funding have access to appropriate education. Adult learners will have the right to funding for specified qualifications. Beyond that, strategic authorities will have some discretion about how to exercise their adult education functions and use the Adult Skills Fund.

Housing and strategic planning

Mayors of combined authorities and combined county authorities will have new planning powers, including power to direct refusal of planning applications of potential strategic importance and power to call in those applications.

The Bill will streamline the process for making mayoral development orders by removing the requirement for mayors to have the consent of the local planning authorities before preparing and consulting on an order.

The Bill will enable mayors of strategic authorities to be charging authorities for the Community Infrastructure Levy (“CIL”). The Secretary of State will have the power to set conditions which must be satisfied before a mayor is able to charge CIL. Mayors will require a simple majority of constituent councils to approve the rates for CIL and the mayors will have a casting vote in the event of a tie.

The Bill will give all mayors of strategic authorities the power to designate a mayoral development area (“MDA”) and to establish a mayoral development corporation.

Economic development and regeneration

The Bill will require all mayoral strategic authorities other than the Greater London Authority to produce a local growth plan, containing an economic overview, shared priorities agreed with the Government, and an investment pipeline.

The Bill will require specified public organisations to have regard to the shared priorities of each local growth plan. The guidance says that the organisations that will be subject to this will be named in regulations. The Bill will also require strategic authorities to co-operate with local government pension schemes.

Health, well-being and public service reform

The Bill will introduce a requirement for strategic authorities to have regard, when they consider whether or how to exercise any of their functions, to the need to improve the health of persons in their areas and reduce health inequalities between persons living in their areas. The introduction of this pervasive duty means that when a strategic authority exercises any of its powers and discharges any of its functions, a strategic authority will need to address any potential negative effects on the health of people living in the authority’s area and any impact on health inequalities.  The guidance says that this responsibility will ensure strategic authorities consider how their actions will impact wider health outcomes across their areas and give them a stronger role as active leaders for health, as well as reinforcing the Government’s ambition to make sure health is considered in all policies. The Bill will also require strategic authorities to co-operate with local government pension schemes.

Public Safety

The guidance says that the Government is committed to increasing the number of mayors with police and crime commissioner (PCC) and fire and rescue authority (FRA) functions. Mayors will be responsible for those functions where mayoral geographies align with police force and FRA geographies. The Bill will allow mayors to exercise PCC functions over more than one police force area where those forces align with a mayoral geography. The Bill will also allow the Secretary of State to change police and fire boundaries at the same time as transferring PCC and FRA functions to mayors of strategic authorities.

Environment and climate change

The Bill does not transfer statutory environmental or climate-related functions to strategic authorities. However, the guidance says that as part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to deepen devolution, the Government will continue to explore future opportunities for devolution in this area and will work closely with strategic authorities.

Mayoral Powers of Competence

The Bill introduces mayoral powers of competence for combined authorities, combined county authorities and their mayors. These are:

• The general power of competence, which empowers the mayor and the authority to do anything that an individual can do.
• A power to convene, which empowers the mayor to convene local partners to consider relevant local matters.
• A duty for local partners to respond to a request from the mayor when the mayor uses the power to convene.
• A duty to collaborate, providing for mayors to have a process by which they can collaborate with neighbouring mayors to deliver projects and strategies together. A mayor for one area would have power to make a request to the mayor for an adjoining area to collaborate on a matter that relates to their areas of competence if the mayor making the request considers that such collaboration would be likely to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of some or all of the people who live and work in their area or of some or all of the people who live and work in their area and some or all of the people who live in the other mayor’s area. The mayor receiving the request would have a duty to consider and respond to the collaboration request. There is provision for multiple mayors to make a collaboration request to another mayor, provided that they adjoin every other requesting mayor’s area and the potential collaborating mayor’s area. Also, one mayor may make a collaboration request to two or more mayors provided that each potential collaborating mayor’s area adjoins the requesting mayor’s area.

The definition of “local partners” will be introduced in regulations but the guidance says that this will include local authorities, National Health Service partners, police and fire services and organisations providing other public services.

Operation of strategic authorities

The Bill makes provision for strategic authorities to pay constituent council members for work done on behalf of the strategic authority. The level of pay will be decided by the strategic authority’s independent remuneration panel.

The Bill provides for a mayor to appoint up to seven commissioners, with each one working in a different area of competence. These will not be members of the authorities. Mayors will be responsible for determining the portfolios of commissioners and will be able to delegate functions to a commissioner.

The Bill introduces a prohibition on a mayor having a role as a Member of Parliament or a member of the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at the same time as being a mayor.

The Bill will introduce a supplementary vote system for the election of mayors, which means that if a candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference vote they will be elected but if not, there will be a further round of voting for the top two candidates.

The governance arrangements for strategic authorities will create a standard simple majority voting method. The White Paper indicated that this would be introduced to avoid blockages in decision making. However, concerns have previously been expressed by some local authorities about how their voices will be heard as a constituent council of a combined authority if they do not have a right of veto over some decisions. It will be interesting to see if their appetite to participate in a combined authority changes in the light of the provisions that the legislation makes relating to decision making.

Establishment of strategic authorities in the future

Further strategic authorities may be established in the future by:

• Councils working together to make a locally led proposal to establish a new combined authority or combined county authority for their area.
• The Secretary of State proposing the establishment of a new combined authority or combined county authority.
• The Secretary of State inviting a single local authority to become a non-mayoral foundation strategic authority.
• The Secretary of State establishing a new strategic authority or expanding an existing institution without the consent of local councils. The guidance says that the Government will limit the use of this power to instances when other routes to establishing a strategic authority have been exhausted. Nevertheless, this may be of concern to those councils who may be progressing devolution proposals in the expectation that the implementation of these will not proceed without their consent.

The Secretary of State will also have the power to require an existing non-mayoral combined authority or combined county authority to have an elected mayor.

Local government reorganisation

The Bill takes forward the intention set out by the Government in the English Devolution White Paper that England should be fully covered by unitary authorities. The Bill will introduce power for the Secretary of State to direct local authorities in two-tier areas to propose reorganisation into a unitary arrangement. This was previously possible under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 but the power had expired in January 2008. The Secretary of State will also have the power to abolish an existing combined authority or combined county authority as part of local government reorganisation but this may only be used where a local government reorganisation will mean that a combined authority or combined county authority can no longer function because one unitary authority will cover or include the entire area of a combined authority or combined county authority. This may be a matter of concern to those local authorities who are currently progressing proposals for reorganisation or may do so in the future.

As previously announced by the Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution, the Bill will make changes to the governance structures available to English local authorities. This means that the committee system will be abolished and no new mayor and cabinet arrangements will be introduced, although local authorities that are already operating the mayor and cabinet system will be able to continue doing so.

Audit

The Bill will create a new body, the Local Audit Office, with responsibility for:

• Co-ordination of the local audit system.
• Standard setting.
• Contracting auditors.
• Appointing auditors to local bodies.
• Quality oversight and reporting.

Community Right to Buy

The Bill proposes to change the current provision for community groups to nominate land as an asset of community value, by introducing a community right to buy. The community right to buy would give community groups the right of first refusal to purchase an asset of community value when it is put up for sale. The community group and the asset owner will negotiate a price for the asset or an independent valuer will set a price based on the market value. The full moratorium period of six months that applies to the sale of an asset of community value will be extended to a review period of twelve months. There is provision for asset owners to be able to ask the relevant local authority to check that community groups are making sufficient progress on the sale. The definition of an asset of community value will be amended to cover a wider range of assets. The Bill will also introduce a sporting asset of community value and all eligible sports grounds will be designated as such.

Neighbourhood governance

The Bill will require all local authorities to establish effective neighbourhood governance to move decision making closer to residents. The guidance says that the details of the requirements will be set out in regulations and that before then the Government will be undertaking a review of the best way to achieve the aims.

Rent reviews in commercial leases

The Bill proposes to abolish upwards only rent review provisions in commercial leases.

The Bill will provide for the implementation of devolution and reorganisation, as well as having the potential to have a significant impact generally on the governance of local authorities and the exercise of their functions. Local authorities need to ensure that they understand and are prepared for the implications for them.

Devolution Priority Programme

The Government has also published its responses to the consultation on the proposed creation of a mayoral strategic authority in each of the areas in the Devolution Priority Programme: Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Norfolk and Suffolk, Greater Essex, Sussex and Brighton and Hampshire and Solent. The Government has confirmed that the areas met the statutory tests and the establishment of mayoral combined authorities will proceed. The Government has announced that mayoral elections will take place in May 2026 for Norfolk and Suffolk, Greater Essex, Sussex and Brighton, and Hampshire and the Solent but that, following a request from local authority leaders, the Government has agreed to align mayoral elections in Cumbria and in Cheshire and Warrington with the vast majority of local elections in May 2027. The Government has also said that it will continue to work with affected councils over the summer of 2025, including confirming funding for new authorities.

Therefore, for those areas in the Devolution Priority Programme, progress with devolution looks set to proceed at pace. In general, local government in England needs to be prepared for devolution and reorganisation and for amendments to aspects of local government as the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill proceeds through Parliament.

The Bill can be accessed at: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4002

The guidance can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-devolution-and-community-empowerment-bill-guidance/english-devolution-and-community-empowerment-bill-guidance

If you need any help with anything discussed in this article or any matters of local authority law, contact Clare Hardy or any member of the Geldards Public Sector team