New draft law on English Devolution lands
The UK Government has today published the ‘English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’ - a game-changing moment for local decision making across England.
This new draft legislation builds on the English Devolution white paper which was published in December 2024 - just after we launched our findings and recommendations from an open policy development programme on ‘cultural devolution’.
We explore some of the bigger set pieces in the Bill below, but in summary:
Existing combined authorities, and all new sub-regional governments will become Strategic Authorities (SAs)
SAs are to be granted a range of additional powers in a range of policy areas
A new devolution framework will bring structure to the devolution process
High expectation of full coverage of England with a move from ‘devolution by deal’ approach to ‘devolution by default’ setting
Culture, creativity and heritage are not included as standalone areas of competence for Strategic Authorities in the new Bill. Nevertheless, we know that our sectors contribute significantly to many of the policy areas that the Bill empowers regions to act on - for example health and wellbeing, economic development, regeneration and adult education.
This new draft legislation will start making it’s way through the UK Parliament soon, and MPs in the House of Commons and the Peers in the House of Lords will have an opportunity to scrutinise and amend the Bill to improve it. Culture Commons will be engaging with parliamentarians throughout this process to ensure our sectors are appropriately platformed.
In the coming days, we’ll be assessing the full extent of the Bill and developing a short briefing note on how our sectors could benefit as drafted. If you’d like to read it - or have views of your own on the subject you’d like to share with us - please get in touch at contact@culturecommons.uk or sign up to our newsletter.
“…we are opting to devolve not dictate and delivering a Bill that will rebalance decade old divides and empower communities. We’re ushering in a new dawn of regional power and bringing decision making to a local level so that no single street or household is left behind and every community thrives from our Plan for Change.”
Headlines
The new Bill includes measures that fall under 3 broad categories:
Devolution: describing devolution structures, outlining and expanding powers for Mayors and authorities through the new Devolution Framework and explaining routes to devolution for places that don’t have it.
Local government: ensuring the process for local government reorganisation supports the ambition in the White Paper, outlining changes to local authority governance, reforming accountability and introducing effective neighbourhood governance structures to amplify local voices.
Communities: giving more power to local communities to purchase assets of community value and making reforms to commercial leases.
A new Devolution Framework
Under previous governments, places negotiated the powers and funding available to a Strategic Authority through individual devolution deals in different parts of England. This has led to inconsistency in powers between places. To change this, this government will roll out devolution by default via a standardised Devolution Framework.
We’ll now have a standardised set of legal powers, funding commitments, and partnership/collaboration arrangements between sub-regions and the UK Government. The Bill sets out what Strategic Authorities are entitled to at each tier of devolution. Strategic Authorities with elected Mayors will be entitled to a more expansive offer than those without.
To streamline devolution across England, each Strategic Authority will belong to 1 of these levels of devolution.
Foundation – available to those authorities without an elected Mayor, Foundation Strategic Authorities will have limited devolution and include non-mayoral Combined and Combined County Authorities as well as single councils that have been specially designated as a Strategic Authority.
Mayoral – available to areas with an elected Mayor, Mayoral Strategic Authorities will have greater devolution and include mayoral Combined and Combined County Authorities.
Established Mayoral – available to Mayoral Strategic Authorities who are able to satisfy additional governance requirements. Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities will have access to the broadest range of devolved powers and functions, including the ability to request further devolved powers from the government. The government will officially name those it has already announced as Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities shortly after the Bill becomes law.
Strategic Authorities will not replace local councils. Strategic Authorities will been created to tackle regional issues and capitalise on the opportunities that exist over a significant geographical area, such as pursuing a more integrated transport network. Councils will continue the important work of representing local communities and delivering key public services like adult social care.
Deepening Devolution
The Bill also makes provision to deepen devolution in future years:
By creating a power to expand the Devolution Framework over time using secondary legislation – giving more powers to devolved areas.
By creating the ability for specific Strategic Authorities to pilot devolved powers before the government decides whether to add them to the Devolution Framework and make them available to all Strategic Authorities. This will make it easier to deepen devolution over time. These processes will also allow for differences in decision making and governance arrangements in exceptional circumstances.
By empowering Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities with a ‘right to request’ which allows them to propose further powers, funding and partnerships to expand the Devolution Framework. The government will be required to officially respond to these requests.
Policy Areas Covered
Strategic Authorities have been earmarked to take on powers in the following policy areas:
transport and local infrastructure
skills and employment support
housing and strategic planning
economic development and regeneration
environment and net zero
health, wellbeing and public service reform
public safety
You can read a fuller explainer from the UK Government on the Bill here with area factsheets explaining what it means for each existing Strategic Authority.
