The government has announced a major package of devolution ( 5th February) – with six new areas confirmed to join the government’s Devolution Priority Programme.
Delivering on the government’s commitment to widen devolution, areas in the Devolution Priority Programme will be given sweeping new powers, putting them on the fast track to deliver growth, opportunities, transport and housing for local communities.
Part of the programme results in the six selected areas becoming Mayorial Authorities.
The following areas are in programme:
These six successful areas will now work to an ambitious devolution timetable, with full government backing, with consultations set to launch shortly.
The programme – one of the largest ever single packages of mayoral devolution in England - will support the areas to move towards devolution at pace, becoming mayor-led strategic authorities by May next year if they proceed.
Today’s measures bring another 8.8m people under mayoral devolution – or another 15.38% of the population – bringing the total population who will see the benefit from devolution to over 44 million – close to 80% of the country.
In a further step forward for devolution being delivered at pace, today legislation comes into force to establish four new devolution institutions:
The government is also focused on fixing the foundations of local government, with simpler and more effective structures and a reduction in unnecessary layers of bureaucracy. Through a national programme of ambitious local government reform, the government will cut waste and improve accountability, ensuring taxpayers get value for money from their services. To achieve this, all councils in two-tier areas and small neighbouring unitary authorities are now being formally invited to develop unitary proposals – which will bring together lower and upper tier local government services in new unitary councils.
Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution, Jim McMahon OBE MP said “While devolution can be hard to understand sometimes, the aims of this programme are simple: it puts more money in people’s pockets, leads to quicker, better, cheaper transport, designed with local people in mind and puts politics back in the service of working people”
The English Devolution White Paper – which is due to be brought forward later this year – will grant mayors control over key areas including strategic planning, housing, transport and skills.
To allow areas to deliver devolution to the proposed timetable, the government has carefully considered requests from local councils to postpone a number of May 2025 local elections.
The bar to postpone elections has been extremely high, and the government has been clear that delays will only be agreed where there is strong justification set out by the local authority. The government has agreed to postpone elections due in May 2025 until May 2026 for nine local councils. These councils made the strongest possible case that this is strictly necessary to deliver both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe.
Surrey is one of the nine councils which are empowered to postpone elections from 2025 to 2026. The government granted this postponement due to the urgency to create sustainable unitary local government for the county to “help speed up reorganisation and deliver the local ambitions for devolution with the benefits it will bring”.
Tim Oliver, Leader of Surrey County Council, said: “Now we’ve received confirmation that Surrey is in the first wave of local government reorganisation, we will develop a business case for reorganisation and submit a draft to government in March.
“Arrangements will also be made to postpone local elections in May so the detailed work for reorganisation and devolution can take place. The resource and time that would have been spent on elections for a soon-to-be-abolished council can now be directed to working on the best possible outcome of reorganisation for Surrey.
“I can be absolutely clear that, throughout this process, our vital work supporting residents will continue – services will be delivered and we will still be here for those who need us most – until whatever new council is fully established to take on that delivery.
“I have always been a firm believer that further devolution from Westminster to local regions and communities would be in the best interest of Surrey residents and businesses.
“Of course, any proposal will now need to be worked up in collaboration with local government and other partners across the county so that together we can really grasp this opportunity to deliver something meaningful for the future of Surrey. We’ll keep residents and staff updated every step of the way.”
Full Text of the MHCLG Announcement is at this link
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