Owl is struggling to understand what Labour’s devolution policy means. 

In brief, Angela Rayner wants to strip out a tier from our two tier local government system and replace it by…………a two tier system. 

Everything Owl reads seems to lack clarity in a jumble of words and confusing terminology.

This is an extract from the latest instruction to the leaders of all Devon Local Authorities of 5th February. It seems a long winded way of saying pretty much any proposal can be considered as long as it combines at least two districts:

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in exercise of his powers under Part 1 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (‘the 2007 Act’), hereby invites any principal authority in the area of the county of Devon, to submit a proposal for a single tier of local government.

This may be one of the following types of proposal as set out in the 2007 Act:

•Type A – a single tier of local authority covering the whole of the county concerned

•Type B – a single tier of local authority covering an area that is currently a district, or two or more districts

•Type C – a single tier of local authority covering the whole of the county concerned, or one or more districts in the county; and one or more relevant adjoining areas

•Combined proposal – a proposal that consists of two or more Type B proposals, two or more Type C proposals, or one or more Type B proposals and one or more Type C proposals.

But these instructions are far from conveying the whole story.

Here is Owl’s take on the current situation. Any corrections or further observations are always welcome.

Single tier Principal Authorities

The government wants to eliminate one tier from the current two tier county and district arrangement creating single authorities covering populations of around 500K. These will become “Principal Authorities” and may or may not have mayors. 

Devon, including Plymouth and Torbay, has a population of around 1.2M and is therefore too big to meet the Government guidelines as originally set.

Plymouth, labour controlled, is already a unitary authority and is bidding to be a stand alone principal authority. Though only having a population of 265K, half the guideline, there is a feeling that the government, faced with the reality of population distributions in rural areas being different from the industrial North, might lower the guideline to encompass 300K to 500K. Plymouth can probably increase its population by expanding into its surrounding “free trade zone” territory.

Exeter, population 130K, has also signalled that it wants to follow Plymouth and bid to stand alone. This will test the elasticity of the guidelines even further.

Like Plymouth, Torbay, has been a unitary authority but has now decided to join Devon and become a Devon and Torbay combined authority. With a population of just under a million a combined Devon and Torbay is still too big to meet the guidelines. So will the guidelines be flexed further or will “combined” Devon and Torbay have to be split?

Nothing “on the table” from Devon fits within the White Paper guidelines.

Strategic Authorities (reinventing a second tier) 

To make matters even more complicated and confusing, the government wants to “fill the devolution gap” by creating Strategic Authorities on top of the new “single tier” principal authorities to deal with devolution funding. Strategic authorities should cover populations of at least 1,5M and be run by elected mayors. The significance of these is that strategic authorities will get devolution funding, principal authorities will not. 

Individual local authorities will not be eligible for mayoral devolution so the new unitary authorities will need to join with neighbouring areas to form mayoral strategic authorities across one or several historic county areas.

This needs to be set against a backdrop of insufficient funding to meet the level of local services people expect.

No new money has been announced.

How might a Strategic Mayoral Authority work

The nearest experience of a mayor that most of us have probably come across is the ceremonial Lord Mayor of Exeter sitting in the front row of an event. Elected annually by city councillors, the mayor’s role is to represent, support and promote the businesses and the people of Exeter. 

The mayors of mayoral authorities are a different kettle of fish.

 In existing mayor authorities, mayors are generally elected directly and have different levels of decision making powers. Under most deals, mayors form a cabinet from the leaders of subordinate authorities and their spending decisions can be rejected by cabinet members on a two-thirds majority.

There are indications that this may not be the case in Strategic Authorities because of the breadth of their envisaged responsibilities. The government now intends to enable mayors to appoint and remunerate ‘commissioners’ to lead on key functions. At present, members of existing combined authority boards are typically asked to lead on portfolios for the region, with no remuneration and alongside their day job as council leaders. 

You can see where all this comes from.

John Major, in 1994, set up regional government offices. These were rebranded as regional development agencies by David Cameron in 1999 tasked with leading the development of a sustainable economy in the region and investing to unlock the region’s business potential. They were abolished by the coalition in 2012 and replaced by business (often developer) led Local Enterprise Partnerships. The Strategic Mayoral Authority is an attempt to do this in a way more directly accountable to the electorate.

These previous attempts at developing the regions have not been successful. They lacked ideas, money and any real power.

The Cornish Problem

Cornwall councillors, supported by their MPs have made it clear that they will not join in any deal with Devon and want to go it alone. Devon authorities on their own cannot assemble the population to become a strategic authority. Neither can Cornwall (population 578K).  For geographical Devon or any of its constituent parts to gain access to strategic funds they must become partners in a wider community. If this is not to be the obvious choice, Cornwall, then it will have to be with neighbours Somerset and Dorset. But Somerset and Dorset have already made a formal “Heart of Wessex combined authority” proposal jointly with: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP); and Wiltshire.

Potentially, this leaves Cornwall with no access to strategic funds. So will they be forced into a shotgun marriage?

Demanding Timescales (Old adage – marry in haste, repent at leisure)

The English Devolution White Paper was published just before Christmas on 16 December. The decision that no proposals put forward by councils in the South West would be on the government’s priority programme for devolution was announced on 5 February. On the same day a letter was sent to all council leaders in Devon “to formally invite you to work with other council leaders in your area to develop a proposal for local government reorganisation, and to set out further detail on the criteria, guidance for the development of proposals, and the timeline for this process.”

It also contained this statement:

“Considering the efficiencies that are possible through reorganisation, we expect that areas will be able to meet transition costs over time from existing budgets, including from the flexible use of capital receipts that can support authorities in taking forward transformation and invest-to-save projects.”

[Note Somerset has yet to find these efficiency savings, no fewer bins to empty or children to educate – Owl]

Interim plan to be submitted on or before 21 March 2025.

Full proposal to be submitted by 28 November.

The aim is to move to elections to new ‘shadow’ unitary councils as soon as possible.

Good Luck with that! – Owl

PS For those wanting more, a good place to start is by listening to last week’s EDDC briefing and debate on the subject – EDDC Cabinet, also coincidentally on Wednesday 5 February, (starting 50 mins into full recording). The initial briefing from Andrew Wood, Director of Place, is particularly helpful.