English Devolution White Paper – radical local government reform

Key Points:

• All district, borough and city councils to get abolished and become either a Foundation Strategic Authority (FSAs, which will include non-mayoral combined authorities, combined county authorities, and any local authority designated as a FSA without a mayor), or a Mayoral Strategic Authority (MSA). This will end the current ‘two-tier’ council system.
• MSAs – Mayor’s to receive new powers over housing targets and planning, including through a Spatial Development Strategy covering their area, which should speed up decision making and will mean that ‘more homes will get built’.
• MSA’s will also have the power to set the strategic direction for any future affordable housing programmes.
• The granting to Mayor’s of ‘call-in’ powers will also mean that there is the possibility that local planning decisions which result in a refusal for housing development could be overridden in certain circumstances.
• Intervention powers will be available to the Secretary of State in order to ensure that FSA and MSA plans and strategies progress.

Strategic Authorities

On the 16th December, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, The Rt Hon Angela Rayner MP, published the English Devolution White Paper. It promises major reform in local government decision-making which will have a significant impact on the planning process. Under the plans, which will evolve into law through an English Devolution Bill, the concept of a ‘Strategic Authority’ will be created, with each belonging to one of two levels; Foundation Strategic Authorities (FSAs) or Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs).

The government’s strong preference is for the creation of ‘partnerships’ that bring more than one local authority together over a large geography,  The government’s long-term ambition is for all parts of England to have a MSA, with FSA’s seen more of a ‘transitional’ step towards that eventual goal. The Secretary of State will, however, have the power to designate an individual local authority as a FSA only.

Foundation and Mayoral

In more detail, FSA’s will include non-mayoral combined authorities and combined county authorities automatically, and any local authority designated as a Strategic Authority without a Mayor. MSA’s will include the Greater London Authority and all Mayoral Combined County Authorities will automatically begin as MSAs. Those authorities which meet specified eligibility criteria may be designated as Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities (EMSAs), with enhanced powers. The English Devolution Bill will also allow for local circumstances to be recognised in exceptional circumstances, with the process for the making of Statutory Instruments in the UK Parliament for individual Combined Authorities, Combined County Authorities and Local Authorities remaining a part of the wider Devolution Framework.

Spatial Development Strategy

The implications of the local government reforms for housing and planning are significant, with the changes expected to accelerate the delivery of the 1.5 million new homes that the current government has committed to in the lifetime of the current Parliament. All new areas will have to produce a Spatial Development Strategy, which the White Paper explicitly says will mean ‘more homes will get built’. Mayors will be given new development management powers, similar to those currently exercised by the Mayor of London. This will include the ability to ‘call in’ planning applications of strategic importance, powers which the Secretary of State currently has and is increasingly using in regards to major housing applications (i.e; such as the scheme for 8,400 homes split across two planning applications on land around the edge of Sittingbourne and Teynham in Kent by Quinn Estates). Also, like the Mayor of London, new Mayors will be able to charge developers a ‘Mayoral Levy’ to ensure that new developments come with the necessary associated infrastructure. A stronger partnership between Homes England and EMSAs is also promised in the White Paper, with EMSA’s also given the ability to set the strategic direction of any future affordable housing programme.

What does this all mean for developers and site promoters?

The requirement for all areas having to produce a Spatial Development Strategy means that housing targets will be determined at a local rather than the current national level, meaning that there should be increased opportunities for developers and site promoters to put forward locations for housing as part of the local plan development process. The granting to Mayor’s of ‘call-in’ powers will also mean that there is the possibility that local planning decisions which result in a refusal for housing development could be overridden in certain circumstances.

Housebuilding in general should get greater exposure with councillors and other key decision makers, as well as the media, once the FSAs and MSAs are fully up and running. The focus on regional planning potentially means that major applications may not get caught up in as many local ward councillor/ local interest group issues as is currently the case. However, the government’s reforms may also prove to be controversial, particularly as the detail and scale of them did not appear in the last election’s Labour Party manifesto, although they have argued in the past that the devolution policy within England has been ‘ad hoc’ and applied inconsistently across the country. Perhaps this is why the White Paper is keen to stress that the new Strategic Authority areas, with their new ‘devolution boundaries’, will be expected to have their own ‘local identity’ and to be aligned with existing public sector boundaries, giving them a resemblance of ‘local’ and ‘democratic’ legitimacy.

As well as devolving housing and planning powers, FSA’s and MSA’s will also gain new powers in transport, energy, skills and employment support and be required to cover geographical areas with populations of roughly 1.5 million people. The next few months will determine the map/ landscape for local decision-making in England for years to come and it will be a development we will all want to follow in detail.