County Councils Network members know from experience that previous attempts to deliver devolution outside of our metro areas were complicated, burdensome and often characterised by disputes between councils. Bottom-up definitions of what constituted a ‘functional economic area’, alongside the inflexibility of the original Combined Authority model, resulted in endless local debates, friction between partners and the breakdown of deals.

But through the commitment to County Deals in the Levelling Up White Paper and Devolution Framework, alongside the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, we now have a new, more practical, approach to spreading devolution to county and rural areas. By recognising the importance of whole county geographies as the building blocks for devolution outside our major cities, it celebrated our historic counties and embraced their economic potential and coherence. For the first time, it offered the opportunity to devolve powers directly to county and unitary authorities in England, speeding-up and simplifying the process. Rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach of the Metro Mayor model, it created new, less bureaucratic, upper-tier Combined County Authorities (CCAs) more suited to complex two-tier areas.

Over the past two years, the County Councils Network has been working closely with the first wave of County Deals and new CCAs. This new approach to devolution has provided the clarity and framework to truly unlock devolution to our great counties, and is facilitating more effective local collaboration between county, unitary and  district authorities – resulting in devolution deals being agreed with 15 member councils in just 20 months.

That’s why the County Councils Network’s proposals below are clear that the next government should build on, not replace, this approach to devolution. The geographical parameters and governance arrangements contained in the Devolution Framework should therefore be retained to ensure every county area has an ambitious devolution deal in place as soon as possible. Alongside this, early clarity on the future path of structural reform is important. If an incoming government chooses to pursue reform, a clear and transparent set of criteria should be established to ensure a coherent and structured process that can create authorities of the necessary size and scale.

The Devolution Framework has undoubtedly provided the geographical parameters and governance arrangements for spreading devolution to county and rural areas. However, turbocharging devolution and the local growth agenda requires a genuine two-way negotiation process with cross-departmental buy-in to devolve the most ambitious set of powers possible, while brigading the separate funding streams which support the building blocks of growth into a single funding pot for local areas.

‍Too often in recent devolution negotiations, this approach has been lacking. The scope of powers, freedoms and flexibilities on offer has been restricted by a lack of ambition and Whitehall resistance. Moreover, while some progress has been made, there remains a prioritisation of the metro-mayors and city devolution: meaning only a small number of urban Combined Authorities have so far benefited from commitments to ‘Level 4’  deals and consolidated multi-year funding arrangements.

County Councils Network member councils are rightly ambitious for their areas and want to ensure that their deals can go above and beyond the scope of powers on offer through the Devolution Framework to bring true parity between city regions and county areas. Alongside this, the County Councils Network wants to work with government to deliver on powers that have thus far been largely unexplored through all existing devolution deals, including strategic planning and net-zero. Greater powers must also be matched by genuine fiscal devolution, recognising that the UK remains one of the most fiscally centralised countries in the western world.

The County Councils Network proposals below set out the need to extend the scope of devolved powers on offer, with the negotiation of more extensive powers, flexibilities and funding that could deliver more ambitious proposals around skills and employment, strategic planning, transport, fiscal devolution, net-zero and public service reform. To access the most extensive powers, there also needs to be more flexibility on the leadership requirements of devolved governance models. Although a directly elected mayor/leader of a county council, unitary authority or CCA provides a more suitable alternative to the existing metro-mayor model, county devolution still needs to be pragmatic, and reflect the political complexity of agreeing a change in governance model locally.