Since the general election, the  government have already begun a welcome process of extending devolution to areas without a devolution deal in place, requesting expression of interests from upper-tier councils while committing to publishing a new devolution framework. This will be followed by an English Devolution Bill, which will  put in place a revised and more ambitious statutory footing for devolution, while simplifying the process for establishing new forms of governance.    

In considering the detail of this, ministers have gone back to first principles and not yet clearly defined key issues around expected governance and what constitutes a ‘sensible’ geography’. However, CCN 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 previous government 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. 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.

A recent CCN survey of those authorities currently without a  devolution shows overwhelming support for maintaining the approach to ensuring deals cover ‘whole county geographies’, county deals and CCA arrangements, with only 8% of councils believing a change in approach would facilitate more deals. Therefore, changing course could undermine government efforts to spread the benefits of devolution across county and rural areas.  

The County Councils Network’s proposals are clear that the government should build on, not replace, the current 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 the 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. This means only a small number of urban Combined Authorities have so far benefited from  the previous government to commitments to ‘Level 4’ deals and consolidated multi-year funding arrangements.

County authorities 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 new government is clear about the benefits of a  directly-elected mayor or leader to spearhead devolution proposals. However, we know from recent experience  that Mayors are not the right solution for all places. It is critical that ambitious non-mayoral devolution is an option under the new administration and these proposals should receive the same degree of prioritisation as mayoral deals if the Government's ambition of widening devolution is to be realised. A recent survey on this issue highlighted how nearly half of respondents without a devolution in place didn't consider the mayoral model of governance to be right for their area at the current time.  ‍

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 and reflect the political complexity of agreeing a change in governance model locally.

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