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Insights: The Devil Remains in the Detail of this Sorry Mess of a Bill

Published on: 20 Jul, 2025
Updated on: 22 Jul, 2025

By Bernard Quoroll

former local authority CEO

Dragon readers might be forgiven for not spotting and reading, ‘The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill”, printed on July 10 and conveniently laid before Parliament just before it recesses on July 24. It has 79 Clauses, and 31 Schedules, totalling 329 pages of closely-typed legalese plus explanatory notes – and we all have lives to lead.

But there are a lot of devils in the detail of this complex and convoluted bill, as will become more readily apparent when tails and horns begin to grow in the coming months.  Much of it is an attempt to catch up on matters that should have been properly surfaced, aired and debated upon long before this sorry so-called “devolution” mess ever saw the light of day.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill – 79 Clauses, and 31 Schedules

Tucked away in the small print are also a wide variety of entirely new proposals, produced behind closed doors, and with little if any consultation, which sadly, is how  Governments these days routinely behave.  I have picked just three.

The first is a proposal to remove the ability of councils to introduce or reintroduce the committee system for taking decisions, in favour of the “leader and cabinet” model which has been heavily promoted in recent years.  The claim originally was that that this enabled local government to become more efficient.  The claim now is that the committee system is ”a poorer form of governance” without any further explanation.

The reality is that central government has always wanted to reinvent local government in its own image – more overtly party political, much less transparent, more remunerated roles for politicians, portfolio holders who can take decisions with little oversight, US style mayors with strong name recognition who can shoot from the hip and work political miracles.

The committee system by comparison has some problems, particularly in the cost of bureaucracy which enables it to be called “old fashioned”. But it has two key benefits – it is much more transparent, so providing more opportunities for accountability and constructive challenge.  As importantly, decisions directly affecting citizens usually have to be taken in public and by more than one elected person, most often a member of a different party.

There is scope for the best of both systems to be operated but if this Bill passes, the ability to choose will be entirely removed – a further nail in the coffin of local democracy.  When you consider the things that have been happening in Guildford over the last few years, you can better understand why this is  so important and why sadly, trust is so lacking in those who put themselves forward for election. It does not need to be that way.

The second is hidden away in notes to the bill which indicate that the Government intends to introduce new clauses which will reduce the “number of consent points and consultation requirements”, on new structures for local government, including “new enabling provisions for the Secretary of State to carry out… processes without local consents”.

Why then is the government even bothering to consult on proposals for Surrey?  As I have previously pointed out, the current consultation process is a farce.  But as it stands, even that does not matter as the Government has plans to be able to ignore it anyway.

Angela Rayner Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government

Thirdly, when tabling the Bill, Angela Rayner said, in relation to the concept of devolution: “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.”

Reality check – this is devolution in name only.  It locks regional combinations of councils into government programmes. It produces a bewildering number of mayoral entities with limited powers and almost no connectivity with the person in the street.

The solution to the problems of “left behind communities” which means most places outside London and the South East, does not rely on further centralisation, which is what these proposals in total amount to.  It lies in local authorities, large enough to be efficient in straightened times but small enough, representative enough and locally aware enough to design their own solutions to local challenges.

Get that right and the economy will have a much firmer basis for fixing itself, community by community.

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