County councils call on Government to speed up devolution

The County Councils Network (CCN) has urged the new Truss administration to make more rapid progress on devolution and conclude deals with the first cohort of county areas.

It said the Government should place counties “at the heart of a pro-growth agenda”.

The previous administration agreed devolution deals for North Yorkshire, and Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire during the summer, and CCN has urged new Communities Secretary Simon Clarke to conclude negotiations with the seven other applicant areas by the end of November.

These are: Cornwall; Devon, Plymouth and Torbay; Durham; Hull and East Yorkshire; Leicestershire, Norfolk; Suffolk.

CCN said devolving substantial investment and powers to counties would be vital to improving the productivity of their local economies.

It said it wanted to see devolution in place in two-thirds of its 36 member council areas by the end of this Parliament.

The expected Planning & Infrastructure Bill should if necessary decouple the more controversial planning aspects from its devolutionary provisions if the former appeared likely to delay the latter, the network said.

It also called for the transfer of functions from local enterprise partnerships to upper-tier authorities, and a commitment to ‘defragment’ funding for growth.

Any county or unitary authority that wants to develop a devolution deal, or is ready to deliver an investment zone, should benefit from a single local growth settlement, not just applied to mayoral combined authorities.

CCN devolution spokesperson Martin Hill, the Conservative leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said: “Two of the new government’s key aims are growing the economy and addressing the cost-of-living crisis. If we are to see the growth needed to boost productivity and bring down inflation, it is vital that economies in all four corners of the country are firing on all cylinders.

“County authorities are not short of ambition but the majority of them lack the powers and investment enjoyed by metro mayors in city areas, which is why it is imperative that the government ensures that the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill is passed through Parliament as soon as possible.”

A DLUHC spokesperson said: “We want to see more areas with a high-profile, directly elected leader who will be accountable to local people and able to deliver for their communities. 

“Negotiations are rapidly progressing with a number of areas to agree their devolution deals. We aim to announce these in 2022.”

Mark Smulian