The day before Devon County Councillors were due to meet to discuss how to best respond to the government’s English Devolution White Paper members were presented with a report by the Council’s chief executive Donna Manson.
‘The benefits of Devolution have already been explored and progressed by Full Council’, she wrote, ‘but the 2024 White Paper sets out a strengthening of such arrangements, including an updated Strategic Framework of Powers, Functions and Funding… along with the additional benefits of a larger geography and an elected Mayor.’
However the ‘benefits’ of the supposed ‘devolution’ now on offer are very different to anything councillors had previously explored. At that time the then leader of the Conservative-controlled Council, Councillor John Hart, was telling members that by joining with Torbay Council in a Combined County Authority ‘devolution’ was offering ‘an opportunity for us to change what we’re doing, the way that we’re doing it, and get better value for our money than we sometimes get when we bid to government and then get strings attached’.
And he not only emphasised ‘we will have the right to do it our way’ but he also promised ‘our way’ would not require an elected Mayor or changes to the current structure of local councils.
Crucially that clearly is no longer the case.
Devolution now requires the abolition of both our county and district councils and the creation of one or more unitary councils with each, other than in exceptional circumstances, having to serve at least 500,000 residents.
Once created those unitary councils will then become part of a Strategic Authority encompassing a wider area which, if the present leader of the County Council Councillor James McInnes has his way, will be led by an elected mayor. And in order for the County Council to be on the ‘front foot’ in negotiating this local government reform Councillor McInnes also told members when they met that County Council elections, originally scheduled for May, needed to be postponed for a year ‘to let us get on with the job’.
This was despite each of Devon’s District Councils having earlier issued a joint statement ‘to make it clear that we do not support the creation of one unitary council for Devon’ and ‘do not support postponing the county council elections scheduled for May 2025.’
Not that their opinion was ever going to matter. As the Council’s Director of Legal and Democratic Services Maria Price explained, with the executive having the power to provide formal responses to any government white paper, Councillor McInnes could simply ignore whatever they thought, a point he reminded his fellow Councillors when they met last Thursday:
‘I could have just sent a letter to the minister and said I would like the County Council election postponed so that we that we can get down to negotiating local government reform. I decided not to do that. I decided we need a full council so that we could have a debate at full council and have the weight behind that when I actually send the letter.’
Needless to say, with the Conservatives currently occupying 38 of the 60 seats on the County Council, the outcome of that debate was never in question, guaranteeing Councillor McInnes was aways going to be able to write to the minister to ask to be included on the Devolution Priority Programme and be allowed to develop his plans for local government reorganisation and delivering a Mayoral Strategic Authority with mayoral elections in May 2026.
Subject to the minister agreeing those plans will have to be submitted by this Autumn. But that agreement is far from a foregone conclusion. The White Paper specifically states inclusion on the Devolution Priority Programme ‘will be for certain places that are able to come together under sensible geographies which meet the criteria, and where they are ready to achieve mayoral devolution at pace.’
In other words, and as the leader of the Lib Dems Caroline Leaver informed her fellow members, referring to Ms Manson’s report:
‘The test for this is that there should be plans ready to go, agreed plans between different local authorities. This report is really clear. It says there have been ongoing discussions with Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay Council and it has not been possible to reach agreement. How can we say there is a plan?’
And without a plan it is hard for the County Council to argue that it is ready.
To complicate matters still further, the same day the County Council was meeting the leader of Plymouth City Council Councillor Tudor Evans was telling his fellow councillors that, for Plymouth to also become a unitary council:
‘Over the next couple of months, it is right that we will have to look at all the options that will enable us to increase our geographical footprint to be able to meet the expected government criteria.’
There can be little doubt those options will include absorbing areas that are currently parts of both the South Hams and West Devon, including Sherford, Woolwell and Roborough.
Similarly, in order to retain its existing unitary status, Torbay may well want to increase its footprint and absorb parts of both the South Hams and Teignbridge.
Such salami-slicing, reducing still further the area of the South Hams, will make it that much harder find the land to meet the government’s new housing targets. It might also leave many to wonder just what any of this has to do with either devolution or democracy.
Not only are the views of our locally elected representatives being ignored but, if Councillor McInnes has his way, we are not going to be given any opportunity to say whether we agree or disagree with how he thinks we should be governed.
In her introduction to the White Paper Angela Rayner claimed her devolution plans will deliver ‘an efficient and accountable local and regional government, with local champions who understand their local places, their identity and strengths, and how to harness them.’
Many in the South Hams will question how that can be done successfully by a unitary council located many miles away, overseen by a mayor who will almost certainly have no local connection.
But in reality the government’s plans have very little to do with either genuine devolution or democracy. As Dr Phil Catney, senior lecturer in politics at Keele University noted: ‘the White Paper frames the issue not as an issue related to democracy - a phrase used only five times in a document running to 118 pages - but in terms of economic growth (mentioned 207 times).’
Or as the Labour leader of Broxtowe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire told the BBC to explain why he, a party member for 42 years, and 19 of his fellow Labour councillors were quitting the Party:
‘I believe the concentration of power in the hands of fewer people and the abolition of local democracy through the current proposals of super councils is nothing short of a dictatorship, where local elected members, local people, local residents will have no say over the type and level of service provided in their area.’
Unfortunately some seem only to happy to see this happen. Responding to Martyn Oates when interviewed on Politics South West South Devon MP Caroline Voaden suggested she had no problem were our District Councils to disappear.
She said: ‘I personally think there’s probably money to be saved if there was one council rather than ten or twelve districts plus a county. There would be fewer elections to fight and fewer leaflets to deliver, which would be very welcome.’
Consequently it would come as no surprise were each of our Lib Dem district councillors, all of whom worked so hard on her behalf to help her get elected, were to have since advised her to think, either again or for the first time.
While doing so they might also suggest she could ask the minister in the House whether it is appropriate for Devon to cancel this year’s County Council elections and be included on the Devolution Priority Programme when it has, as yet, to reach any agreement or understanding with either its own district councils or any of its other neighbouring authorities on what plan for devolution it might be possible to put forward.
To stop fools rushing in the County Council elections should go ahead as originally planned, permitting each of the parties to put forward their plans for the direction devolution should take, so allowing communities the opportunity to have their say.
As it stands, Councillor McInnes and his colleagues have no mandate for whatever it is they might eventually hope to impose.
