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A list of frequently asked questions on devolution and local government reorganisation.
The below FAQs are not an exhaustive list. We will continue to add new questions and answers as and when they arise.
If you have a question that is not covered by the below, or you feel that an answer requires further clarification, please email [email protected] and we will consider it for inclusion.
Last updated: 31 January 2025
A: The English Devolution White Paper is the Government’s statement of their plans to reform local government. This includes a wide range of proposals on devolution but also wider plans for local government reorganisation and changes to local audit. For further information on the specific proposals contained within the White Paper, please refer to the LGA’s on-the-day factual briefing.
A: As outlined by UK Parliament, "white papers are policy documents produced by the Government that set out their proposals for future legislation".
A: In England, devolution is the transfer of powers and funding from national to local government. It is important because it ensures that decisions are made closer to the local people, communities and businesses they affect.
A: Local government reorganisation is the process in which the structure and responsibilities of local authorities are reconfigured. In the context of the English Devolution White Paper, the Government have set out plans to move away from the current two-tier system of district and county councils. The Government has indicated that for most areas this 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.
A: Devolution is the transfer of powers and funding from national to local government. Local government reorganisation is about how the powers and funding that sit with local government are organised between councils.
A: There are two ways in which local government reorganisation (LGR) can take place.
The first is instigated by an invitation to make a proposal for unitarisation by the Secretary of State. The procedure for this can be found in sections 1–7 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. It is important to note that while invitations may be issued because an area has unanimously agreed to a reorganisation, unanimous agreement is not a precondition. This is the most common path to LGR.
The second way is where authorities in an area are in agreement about their preferred way forward. In that case, under section15 of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, they can make a proposal to the Secretary of State. It is unusual for all authorities to agree and so this provision it not expected to be extensively used.
A: The Government have indicated that they intend to deliver new unitary authorities included in the Devolution Priority Programme by April 2027 and remaining unitary authorities by April 2028.
A: The Devolution Priority Programme (DPP) is for areas who wish to move towards devolution at pace. The Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution has also outlined that participants must also have local agreement to move forward around a sensible geographical footprint. The DPP is for areas wishing to pursue establishment of a Mayoral Strategic Authority. This will be with a view to inaugural mayoral elections in May 2026.
A: Areas who are minded-to join the Devolution Priority Programme will be invited to submit interim proposals to Government by March 2025. Areas which have delayed local elections will be invited to submit full proposals by May 2025, and all remaining areas invited to submit proposal by autumn 2025.
A: Unitary authorities are a single tier of local government responsible for all local services in an area. They may cover a whole county, part of a county or a large town or city. For example, Cornwall Council, Nottingham City Council and Reading Borough Council are all unitary councils. Large urban areas may have a unique form of unitary authorities called metropolitan councils, such as Oldham or Doncaster. London boroughs are also unitary authorities.
A: A combined authority is a legal body set up using national legislation that enables a group of two or more councils to collaborate and take collective decisions across council boundaries. You can find out more about this in the LGA’s publication Combined Authorities: A Plain English Guide. Under the new proposals, it is expected that combined authorities will be replaced by strategic authorities.
A: A strategic authority will be a legal body set up using national legislation that enables a group of two or more councils to collaborate and take collective decisions across council boundaries. We expect further detail to be set out as part of the English Devolution Bill. Depending on the form of devolution in an area, there are three levels of strategic authority available:
- Foundation strategic authority: Available to those areas without an elected mayor. It will have limited devolution. For example, the current Lancashire devolution deal will establish a Foundation Strategic Authority.
- Mayoral strategic authority: For those with an elected mayor, a range of powers will be devolved. For example, the West of England is a mayoral strategic authority.
- Established mayoral strategic authority: For those mayoral strategic authorities, who are able to satisfy a number of additional governance requirements. They will have access to the most devolution. Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are already at this stage.
A: The Government has acknowledged that for some areas, the timing of elections affects their planning for local government reorganisation. To help manage these demands, the Government will consider requests to postpone local elections, as submitted on Friday 10 January 2025.
The Government will work with local areas, including agreeing where local elections may be delayed. Requests from councils to postpone local elections will only be considered where postponement will help an area to deliver both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe. Where local elections are postponed, Government will work with areas to move to elections to new ‘shadow’ unitary councils as soon as possible as is the usual arrangement in the process of local government.
Areas that have submitted a request to delay local elections are:
Counties
Derbyshire
Devon
East Sussex
West Sussex
Essex
Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Kent
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Norfolk
Oxfordshire
Suffolk
Surrey
Warwickshire
Worcestershire
Unitaries
Thurrock
Isle of Wight
A: In webinars with the sector, Government has indicated that it will consider what support it is able to provide councils for any delays to elections.
A: A mayor is the directly elected leader of a geographical region. Many areas of England already have mayors, including London, Greater Manchester, and West Yorkshire. There are also directly elected mayors covering single unitary councils.
A: The Government believes that within the context of strategic authorities, mayors should have a unique role which allows them to focus fully on devolved responsibilities. Council leaders are expected to continue to focus on leading their place and delivering vital services.
A: The English Devolution White Paper outlines how the Government will legislate for a ministerial directive to enable the Government to create strategic authorities in any remaining places where local leaders in that region have not been able to agree how to access devolved powers.
The Government will limit its use of this power to instances when other routes have been exhausted. The Government will ensure that the ministerial directive is used to conclude the process where there is majority support, or the formation is essential in completing the rollout of strategic authorities in England.
A: Mayoral strategic authorities may request access to a deeper level of devolution, including an integrated settlement to form an established mayoral strategic authority.
The criteria for this includes:
- The mayoral strategic authority (or predecessor mayoral strategic authorities) have been in existence, with a directly elected mayor in place, for at least 18 months at the point of submitting a request to move up to the established mayoral tier and access the integrated settlement;
- The strategic authority has a published Local Assurance Framework in place;
- In the previous 18 months, the strategic authority has not been the subject of a Best Value Notice, a Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG)-commissioned independent review, or a statutory inspection or intervention;
- The strategic authority is not subject to any ongoing (or implementing) recommendations from an externally mandated independent review; and
- There are no material accounting concerns covering the current or previous financial year that relate to the strategic authority’s ability to manage public money.
For Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, the North East, South Yorkshire, West Midlands, and West Yorkshire, these areas are regarded to having met the Government’s criteria and will receive integrated settlements.
Mayors of strategic authorities that meet these criteria will be able to write to MHCLG to apply to be an established mayoral institution. The Secretary of State will have the power to legally designate mayoral strategic authorities as established mayoral strategic authorities and will always do so when they qualify. This process will require the consent of the strategic authority’s constituent local authorities.
Once designated as an established mayoral strategic authority, it will automatically be conferred with the relevant powers and functions available at that level of the framework by right.
A: Established mayoral strategic authorities will be eligible to receive an integrated settlement, which will commence at the following Spending Review provided a sufficient preparation period has passed.
As official designation will not be possible until the English Devolution Bill becomes law, those strategic authorities that already meet the Government's status criteria, will receive elements of the framework ahead of designation where practicable.
A: The Local Government Association (LGA) encourages all councils to support their continuous improvement by engaging with sector-led support, including corporate peer challenge. The Best Value standards and intervention statutory guidance sets out an expectation that all local authorities will have a corporate or finance peer challenge at least every 5 years. Where councils are preparing for LGR, a corporate or finance peer challenge will help to identify issues which should be considered and addressed in preparing for LGR in relation to leadership, governance, finance, and capacity. There is also the potential for the corporate peer challenge to have an additional focus on readiness for LGR.
A: In preparing for LGR it is important that each authority has a clear understanding of its strengths, risks and areas for improvement, with particular reference to leadership, governance, finance and capacity. These will continue to be and become even more relevant in the context of LGR – either when planning for transition or in understanding the resources and challenges which will come forward into the new authority. A corporate peer challenge will identify those strengths, risks and areas for improvement across these key areas, and can be targeted to focus particularly on preparedness, capacity and capability for LGR. The report can also provide helpful insights and reflections about opportunities, risks and priorities for any new unitary.
A: The LGA brings together teams of member and officer peers to deliver constructively challenging and robust messages to support improvement and provide assurance. Peers are drawn from councils across the country, bringing a range of expertise, both in terms of the ‘core’ themes such as finance and governance, and with specific experience of LGR.
A: By working in partnership with the sector, the LGA understands the pressures faced by councils and the capacity and resources required to undertake significant transformation such as LGR. CPC is delivered by the sector for the sector, using experienced member and officer peers, so we understand. We work with councils to minimise the burden of preparing for a CPC, using existing documentation wherever possible. Feedback from councils which have received CPCs demonstrates CPCs deliver excellent outcomes for councils and their communities.
A: Visit the LGA’s corporate peer challenge webpages or speak to your Principal Adviser.
The following questions have been answered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
A: As set out in the White Paper, new unitary councils must be the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks. For most areas this 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.
A: As set out in the White Paper, the case for local government reorganisation is that there are significant opportunities available to areas from the creation of suitably sized unitary councils responsible for local government services for that area. Unitarisation can cut wasteful duplication of bodies, reduce the number of politicians and reduce fragmentation of public services.
Efficiencies: In 2020 a PwC report, “Evaluating the importance of scale in proposals for local government reorganisation”, for the County Councils Network, estimated that reorganisation of the then 25 two-tier areas to a single unitary structure would have a one-off cost of £400 million, with the potential to realise £2.9 billion over 5 years, with an annual post-implementation net recurring saving of £700 million. The unitary proposals submitted in relation to the most recently established unitary councils identified a range of efficiencies that could be achieved where council services are brought together in one organisation. For North Yorkshire Council, established in April 2023, unitarisation has enabled the council to manage financial pressures through structural changes and service transformation which are expected to achieve more than £40 million in savings by March 2026.
A: As set out in the 16 December letter from the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, his intention is to formally invite unitary proposals in January 2025 from all councils in two-tier areas, and small neighbouring unitary councils. In this invitation, the Minister will set out further detail on the criteria that will be considered when taking decisions on the proposals that are submitted to Government. He intends to ask for interim plans by March 2025.
A: As set out in the White Paper, we know people value the role of governance at the community scale and that can be a concern when local government is reorganised. We will therefore want to see stronger community arrangements when reorganisation happens in the way councils engage at a neighbourhood or area level. We will also rewire the relationship between town and parish councils and principal Local Authorities, strengthening expectations on engagement and community voice.
A: As set out in the 16 December letter from the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, his intention is to formally invite unitary proposals in January 2025 from all councils in two-tier areas, and small neighbouring unitary councils. In this invitation, the Minister will set out further detail on the criteria that will be considered when taking decisions on the proposals that are submitted to Government.
A: As set out in the White Paper, we recognise that reorganisation will create upfront costs and additional pressures for councils alongside their crucial responsibilities to communities, including caring for some of the most vulnerable in society. It is vital that new unitary councils get off to a good start, so we will work closely with local leaders to explore what support they might need to develop robust proposals and implement new structures, including taking decisions to postpone local elections where this will help to smooth the transition process. We will learn from the experience and successes of others who have been through the process.
A: As set out in the White Paper, it is for councils to develop proposals for new unitary councils which are the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks.
A: As set out in the 16 December letter from the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, his intention is to formally invite unitary proposals in January 2025 from all councils in two-tier areas, and small neighbouring unitary councils. In this invitation, the Minister will set out further detail on the criteria that will be considered when taking decisions on the proposals that are submitted to Government.
A: As set out in the 16 December letter from the Minister for Local Government and English Devolution, his intention is to formally invite unitary proposals in January 2025 from all councils in two-tier areas, and small neighbouring unitary councils. In this invitation, the Minister will set out further detail on the criteria that will be considered when taking decisions on the proposals that are submitted to Government.
A: The White Paper set out the principles for agreeing geographies for MSAs, and states it may not be possible to meet all the principles in all situations and the government will work with areas to find an optimal outcome. On scale it states:
Scale: Strategic Authorities should be of comparable size to existing institutions. The default assumption is for them to have a combined population of 1.5 million or above, but we accept that in some places, smaller authorities may be necessary.