The fifty years since English local government was last radically reformed have been an era of incremental changes, often controversial and politically-motivated, that have led to the UK becoming one of the most centralised democracies in the developed world.
Few would deny that it now needs comprehensive reorganisation, but a single sentence in last October’s budget still set the hares racing by announcing a pending white paper that threatened “simpler structures” for local government and “efficiency savings from council reorganisation”.
Few failed to read the runes. The “unitarisation” of local government – the replacement of two-tier county and district councils with new unitary authorities – which has so far led to 71% of the UK population living under 132 single-tier authorities – would now be completed by the dissolution of the remaining 21 two-tier county councils and the 164 district councils into which they are divided.
Local authority structure in England, December 2024. Source: House of Commons Library.
The budget mini-reveal followed a decade of ad hoc, patchwork devolution that had left half the country untouched while producing a jumble of deals in the rest that vary in style and substance. Eleven of the new combined authorities are led by directly-elected mayors – but not in Devon or Cornwall.
Cornish devolution has a long and complex history that dates back centuries. More recently, after being formed as a unitary authority in 2009, Cornwall Council became the first local authority in England to receive special devolved powers in 2015.
By the end of 2022 it was being offered significant funding and greater independence from central government in a “level three” deal provided it agreed to the creation of a directly-elected Mayor. However it abandoned the deal because of public opposition and instead agreed a “level two” deal in November 2023.
At the same time momentum began gathering in favour of a Cornish assembly or senate like those in Wales and Scotland, and the government agreed to develop a Cornwall white paper. Then last year’s general election halted the process.
In September Cornwall’s newly-elected MPs and council group leaders wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister seeking a devolution deal discussion based on two non-negotiable premises – no mayor and a Cornwall-only footprint – but no meeting took place.
Local government minister Jim McMahon nevertheless subsequently said, in response to a question in the House of Commons, that Cornwall’s current level two deal was a “first step”.
He added: “We recognise the distinct culture, history and identity of the Cornish people. This important step will allow us to unlock deeper devolution in Cornwall and, in time, we hope it will allow Cornwall to take its seat at the Council of the Nations and Regions.”
Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority governance structure. Only the “constituent” members vote and make decisions. Source: Devon County Council.
Devon County Council, meanwhile, was also pursuing a non-mayoral “level two” deal, with Torbay Council in tow. (Plymouth City Council pulled out at the same time the Cornwall deal was going ahead when it became clear that it would lose control over local transport if it signed up.)
Despite undermining democratic accountability and coming with paltry government funding, the Devon and Torbay deal was approved last September.
The House of Commons nodded the new Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority regulations through last Wednesday. They passed before the Lords on Monday, and are expected to come into force shortly.
Devon’s district councils will not have any voting rights on the new body. They nevertheless lined up to support a move to put the “Team Devon” joint committee – which emerged during the pandemic as a common interest forum for the county’s local authority leaders – on a formal footing under the new Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority, apparently hoping it would give them a voice.
It seemed likely that the new committee was little more than a sop to the district councils, and Devon County Council moved the date on which it was to formally endorse and join the new committee six times last year, before eventually signing it off in December.
But the Devon district leaders joined anyway, all looking to the new committee’s first meeting on 8 January to set the tone for what would follow.
South West peninsula unitary and district local authorities. Source: Ordnance Survey.
Even without the Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority adding a remote and unaccountable governance layer on top of the existing system, local and regional government in the South West peninsula is, by anybody’s standards, difficult to grasp.
There are nineteen MPs representing the peninsula in Parliament. Only the North Devon constituency boundaries match any of the layers of local government.
568 elected councillors sit on twelve local authorities, of which three are unitaries – Plymouth, Torbay and Cornwall – with upper-tier Devon County Council sitting above eight lower-tier district councils. Notwithstanding their names, the districts include Exeter City Council and West Devon Borough Council.
Below Devon’s districts, although not in Exeter, Torbay or Plymouth, are 426 civil parishes, of which 359 are town or parish councils that represent around 550,000 electors, and which are represented in turn by the Devon Association of Local Councils. In Cornwall the whole county’s electorate can variously vote for another 218 civil parishes. They too have a representative body.
Then there is Dartmoor National Park Authority, which oversees 368 square miles of moorland and upland in which more than 34,000 people live.
It is a free-standing local authority with special status and responsibility for planning decisions despite the park also being split between the districts of Teignbridge, South Hams and West Devon and sitting under Devon County Council, each of which appoint some but not all of its members.
Exmoor National Park Authority, overseeing 267 square miles of uplands in which 11,000 people live, has the same form of special status as Dartmoor. But as only a quarter of the park is in Devon, most of its council-appointed members come from the Somerset side of the border.
One Devon Integrated Care Board Local Care Partnerships map. Source: One Devon.
The administrative boundaries of major South West peninsula public services also resist geographic alignment. Devon and Cornwall Police is not aligned with Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service while Cornwall has a separate fire and rescue service of its own.
Devon and Cornwall’s Police and Crime Commissioner is elected by voters across the peninsula and monitored by a panel that meets in Plymouth. The panel is composed of eighteen councillors from all the peninsula’s council tiers, with two non-councillor members.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, on the other hand, is commissioned by a fire and rescue service authority with 25 members from Devon County Council, Plymouth City Council, Torbay Council and Somerset Council but not Devon’s districts.
It works alongside South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves both Devon and Cornwall and also covers more than a dozen other large local authority areas, including Somerset.
At the same time six NHS trusts with overlapping geographies provide healthcare services in Devon and Cornwall alone. They sit below two integrated care boards, which have local authority representation in the form of officers but not councillors.
Devon’s Integrated Care Board also oversees five local care partnerships whose boundaries do not coincide with any of the county’s political geographies, except in Plymouth. Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board has no such subgeographies.
And how familiar are South West residents with Peninsula Transport, the shadow sub-national transport body? It is composed of councillors from each of Cornwall Council, Plymouth City Council, Torbay Council, Devon County Council and – another administrative boundary mismatch – Somerset Council too.
English Devolution white paper. Source: MHCLG.
So when the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) followed through on the budget mini-reveal by publishing an English devolution white paper in December, it hardly needed to make the case for more intelligible local government in the South West peninsula.
Secretary of State Angela Rayner opens the document with fine words, saying the government “will change our politics, so that decisions are made with communities, not done to them”, adding that this is “what it means to take back control” (one of five times the Vote Leave slogan appears).
What follows nevertheless makes clear that the government not only intends to impose new top-level regional government layers whether local councils want them or not, to be called “strategic authorities”, it also intends to impose regional mayors who can “use their mandate for change to take the difficult decisions needed to drive growth”.
It calls this process “devolution”, but it is the government that will be taking back control of regional decision-making, not local councils or communities.
To make sure no-one is in any doubt about the outcome, the government says a “ministerial directive” will enable it to “create strategic authorities in any remaining places where local leaders in that region have not been able to agree” to “ensure a complete national layer of strategic authorities”.
It describes this as “devolution by default” although, if invoked, it will be devolution by directive.
It also says a “desire for perfect consensus must not get in the way”, so it will introduce simple majority voting in all mayoral authority decisions to prevent councils obstructing “key decisions” that will “drive long-term economic growth”, and will give as-yet unspecified powers solely to mayors.
It then intends to keep a close reign on all the mayors at the head of the new strategic authorities in the Council of the Nations and Regions, chaired by the Prime Minister, and the Mayoral Council for England, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner.
It presents this as “hardwiring devolution into central government”. It might better be described as bypassing local democracy everywhere the government wants housing or infrastructure delivery.
Current English devolution landscape. Source: MHCLG.
Most of the white paper is focussed on the creation of the new strategic authorities. Current non-mayoral “level two” devolved authorities like Cornwall Council and the Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority will automatically become “Foundation Strategic Authorities” under the new system. By definition these do not have mayors, nor can they.
Current mayoral devolved authorities, like the Greater London Authority, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and East Midlands Combined County Authority will become “Mayoral Strategic Authorities”.
Those of these that meet certain criteria will be designated “Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities”, a status upgrade that comes with a promise of more money in the form of an “Integrated Settlement”, a euphemism for core central government grant funding.
There is nothing in the white paper about the value of this funding, which the Treasury will apparently control, and there is no sign of meaningful local government funding reform or fiscal devolution either.
The white paper promotes the devolution it proposes as offering “unprecedented powers and budgets for mayors”, but it appears that these budgets are to be funded by consolidating local government service delivery in the hope of cutting costs.
It cites a 2020 PwC report which “estimated that reorganisation of the then 25 two-tier areas to a single unitary structure would have a one-off cost of £400 million, with the potential to realise £2.9 billion over five years, with an annual post-implementation net recurring saving of £700 million.”
However Somerset Council has since been created to replace the county council and four district councils, becoming England’s second largest unitary authority, with a population of 581,000.
It was expected to save £18.5 million a year as a result, but declared a “financial emergency” six months after its formation in April 2023, projecting an overspend of £27 million that year and a deficit of £100 million the following year.
Evaluating the importance of scale in proposals for local government reorganisation - PwC, August 2020. Source: County Councils Network.
The white paper also includes criteria for the creation of new strategic authorities. It says the government’s “strong preference” is for “partnerships that bring more than one local authority together over a large geography” with a directly-elected mayor.
Reinforcing the point, it says: “Our ambition remains for all parts of England to ultimately have a Mayoral (and eventually Established Mayoral) Strategic Authority.”
It sets out geography and governance criteria against which it says it will assess strategic authority proposals, with the caveat that it “will not be possible to meet all the principles in all situations and the government will work with areas to find an optimal outcome”.
It says the “default assumption” is that strategic authorities will cover an area with a population of 1.5 million or more, although it accepts that “in some places, smaller authorities may be necessary”.
It also says strategic authorities “must cover sensible economic geographies with a particular focus on functional economic areas, reflecting current and potential travel-to-work patterns and local labour markets”.
Any proposed geography “must be contiguous across its constituent councils” and must not create “devolution islands” by “leaving areas which are too small to go it alone”.
Geographies should also “ensure the effective delivery of key functions” including spatial development and transport planning and enable local residents to “engage with and hold their devolved institutions to account”.
In perhaps the biggest ask of all, at least in the South West peninsula, the white paper also says they should also “promote alignment between devolution boundaries and other public sector boundaries”.
The white paper has considerably less to say about the new unitary councils that the government wants to see created below the strategic authority level. These will be called “principal authorities” in the new system.
It says they “must be the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks” which, in most cases, “will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more”, but does not provide any rationale for setting this threshold, which only eleven existing unitaries meet.
It nevertheless adds that “there may be exceptions to ensure new structures make sense for an area” and “decisions will be on a case-by-case basis”.
When asked to provide evidence in support of the 500,000 unitary population size threshold, and how it was calculated, all MHCLG could come up with was the reference to the PwC report.
All this has to say on the subject is: “Much debate has taken place as to the optimum size of the unitary authorities. Drawing on previous research from 2006, a population threshold of 300,000 to 800,000 has commonly been cited.
“While the government is yet to formally set out its position, the most recent official Ministerial statement on unitary population size was made in June [2020], and outlined that unitary councils are expected to be ‘substantially in excess of 300-400,000’”.
It adds, optimistically as it turns out: “It is anticipated that the white paper will provide further details on the criteria for unitary proposals.”
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government information request response, January 2025. Source: What Do They Know?.
Despite the paucity of unitary criteria in the white paper, it also promises “empowered local leaders and councils, with a clear national framework for the public to hold them to account”.
The government says the outcome of the “local government reorganisation” the white paper proposes will be fewer local councillors who will be “more able to focus on delivering for residents” despite each representing many more of them.
It also says it will “rewire the relationship between town and parish councils” and the unitary authorities above them. No more detail is provided, but it seems likely that towns and parishes will become responsible for some district council functions: this is what happened in Somerset in 2023.
The white paper only mentions the governance relationship between the new unitary principal authorities and the strategic authorities above them once.
It says the former will “come together to form” the latter, but doesn’t say anything else about how new strategic authorities will be composed of unitary authorities, or their members.
Proposed local government structure in England. Source: MHCLG.
To facilitate the bulk creation of new strategic authorities, the white paper says the government intends to “group areas at similar stages of progress, prioritising those minded to work towards mayoral models”.
It adds that the government will invite “a number of places” that are “able to come together under sensible geographies which meet the criteria” and which are “ready to achieve mayoral devolution at pace” to join its fast-track “devolution priority programme”.
Fast-track areas will be expected to “deliver institutions and have mayors elected in the May 2026 elections”.
It also says that all two-tier areas and all the councils within them are expected to “work together to develop unitary proposals that are in the best interests of the whole area, rather than developing competing proposals” and to work with the government to facilitate change “as swiftly as possible”.
It adds that proposals for new strategic authorities and the unitaries below them “should be complementary”.
Jim McMahon devolution white paper letter to local council leaders. Source: MHCLG.
On the same day the devolution white paper was published, local government minister Jim McMahon wrote to the leaders of all two-tier councils and their neighbouring authorities. Cornwall Council says it did not receive this letter.
He repeated the white paper’s emphasis on the need for plans for new strategic authorities to dovetail with plans for unitaries below them.
He said he would set out further detail on the criteria for new unitary creation before the end of January, and would invite all councils in two-tier areas and small neighbouring unitary councils to submit interim proposals by the end of March.
He added that the government expected to “deliver new unitary authorities in April 2027 and 2028”.
His letter also said the government would be willing to postpone the 2025 local elections, but only where doing so would enable an area to deliver both new strategic authorities and new unitaries “to the most ambitious time-frame”.
It invited upper-tier councils in such areas to respond by 10 January, setting out “how postponing the election would enable the council to make progress with reorganisation and devolution in parallel on the devolution priority programme, or would speed up reorganisation and enable the area to benefit from devolution as quickly as possible once new unitary structures are in place”.
It added that the government would decide which areas would be included in the fast-track programme by the end of January.
Unitary local government research briefing, June 2025. Source: House of Commons Library.
The white paper didn’t land well. Commentators observed that its proposals would probably lead to the loss of between 4,000 and 5,000 councillors in England, a fall of about a quarter.
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden all have relatively more councils and councillors than the UK. German local democracy provides eight times as many councillors per person than England, while France provides 25 times as many.
Others pointed out that half a century of academic research has found no proof that abolishing councils works and that the government’s reforms risk disrupting local democracy and taking power away from voters at a time when public trust in politics is low, with significant upfront costs and without proof of the claimed economic or efficiency benefits.
A House of Commons Library briefing concluded that it is “not clear from available evidence whether unitary councils save money compared with a two-tier system”, adding: “When councils are merged, sometimes the merged council saves money and sometimes it does not.”
It also found that the minimum population threshold for new unitaries of 500,000 (with exceptions) was “in line with what has happened when other areas have been converted from two-tier to single-tier systems since 2008”, citing the 2019 creation of two Dorset unitaries to replace the county council, two unitaries and six district councils that preceded them.
However it added, using Plymouth as an example of several city-based unitaries that were created in the 1990s with populations well below this threshold, that it is “not clear what the population criterion of 500,000 means for existing unitary authorities.”
Local Government Association chair Louise Gittins said: “While our members are - and always have been - open to change, we remain clear that local government reorganisation should be a matter for councils and local areas to decide.”
Local Government Information Unit chief executive Jonathan Carr-West said: “The white paper holds out promise but also creates risk. We need to ensure that the coming months are not just spent in fractious debate about the appropriate size for unitary councils.”
County Councils Network chair Tim Oliver said: “Any decisions on local government reorganisation by ministers must be evidence-based”, adding: “The role of local authorities should be enhanced not diminished”.
Sam Chapman-Allen, chair of the District Councils’ Network went further. He warned that “the top-down imposition of mega-councils” could lead to “regional, rather than local, government covering many hundreds of thousands or even millions of people”.
He added: “The danger is that the powerful link between councillor and citizen will be lost and local democracy is diminished.”
Devon County Council 9 January 2025 meeting agenda. Source: Devon County Council.
None of these uncertainties gave pause to Devon County Council. The day after the white paper was published it cancelled the first formal Team Devon Joint Committee meeting scheduled for 8 January and called a meeting of the county council for the following day.
County council leader James McInnes nevertheless said: “Devon’s district councils, national park authorities, county council and Devon Association of Local Councils are working together as a Team Devon partnership”.
He added: “Our Team Devon Joint Committee will tackle the things that matter most”, but there is no sign of a Team Devon Joint Committee meeting anywhere in Devon County Council’s meetings calendar, which is currently complete to the end of May 2026.
Exeter City Council then showed its hand, three days later, after James McInnes also said he would pursue the creation of a single Devon-wide unitary authority, seek to join the fast-track devolution priority programme and postpone the May 2025 county council elections.
City chief executive Bindu Arjoon said: “We believe that the interests of the city and the rest of Devon are best served through the creation of a unitary Exeter, which would work in partnership with other councils in a mayoral strategic authority.”
City council leader Phil Bialyk, apparently overlooking Plymouth while signalling the exceptionalism that was to follow, added: “Exeter is the economic powerhouse of the county and drives the economy of the rest [of] Devon, so it is important that decisions for Exeter are made in Exeter.”
Devon district leaders joint statement, 3 January 2025. Source: East Devon District Council.
Christmas came and went, along with the date by which Devon County Council was required by law to publish the documents for its 9 January 2025 meeting. Then on 3 January the leaders of all eight Devon district councils signed a joint statement in response to the white paper.
It said: “We would like to make it clear that we do not support the creation of one unitary council for Devon.
“Our county, including Torbay, is diverse and made up of nearly one million residents across urban, coastal, and rural areas. Any reform of local government in Devon should follow a period of proper consultation with residents, businesses, elected representatives, and stakeholders.
It added: “We do not support postponing the county council elections scheduled for May 2025. The government has indicated that this will only happen in priority areas who have clear and agreed plans. This is not the case in Devon, so we cannot be in the first phase of these reforms.”
It concluded: “Our objective must be to get this right for our residents and businesses. That cannot be achieved if we make rushed decisions that have not been given the serious consideration that they deserve.”
Curiously, while city council leader Phil Bialyk signed the statement, Exeter was alone amongst the eight district councils in not publishing it.
Report to Devon County Council meeting held at 10am on 9 January 2025, published at 11.01am on 8 January 2025. Source: Devon County Council.
The Local Government Act 1972, as amended, says councils must publish the agendas and any reports or background papers for their meetings five clear days before they take place. The latest date on which Devon County Council could lawfully have published the agenda and any reports or background papers for the meeting it held on 9 January was therefore 31 December.
It published the agenda that day, which confirmed that it would be taking a “framework decision” – a decision reserved to full meetings of Devon County Council – related to the devolution white paper. But the accompanying report was not published until less than 24 hours before the meeting was held.
The report’s authors appeared not to have read the white paper, or Jim McMahon’s letter, properly despite apparently giving themselves as long as they thought they could get away with to do so.
Notwithstanding the new strategic authority creation criteria set out in the white paper, their report recommended applying for the fast-track devolution priority programme and requesting the cancellation of the May 2025 county council elections – extending the terms of all those voting on it by twelve months.
It did not acknowledge the contradiction between its confirmation that agreement on a South West peninsula mayoral strategic authority had not been reached and the government’s stipulation that the fast-track programme is only for strategic authority-scale areas that are ready to prepare for mayoral elections in May 2026.
It also did not acknowledge that the fast-track programme is only for areas that can address the requirement for unitaries at the same time, despite the unambiguous joint statement by Devon’s district council leaders the preceding week.
It sought to justify joining the fast-track and postponing this year’s county council elections on the grounds that not doing so “could lead to the risk of reorganisation being imposed on the council”, as if the government had not also laid out a timetable for areas that do neither.
The county council even claimed, in an accompanying impact assessment, that postponing the elections would be “unlikely to negatively impact any community group” and would be “more likely to be less confusing for people who may experience difficulties with periods of unsettlement and change, or making arrangements to vote”. No evidence was offered to support either of these claims.
Devon County Council meeting, 9 January 2025.
At the meeting itself, Devon County Council chair John Hart confirmed that, as the agenda said, the council had been convened to make a framework decision that required the full council’s approval.
County solicitor Maria Price, who insisted that the meeting was being legally, then said that the decision did not require the full council’s approval and could be made by the council leader instead.
She referred the assembled members to legislation which specifies which local authority functions cannot be performed under executive authority, presumably because as these regulations do not explicitly mention responding to government correspondence, doing so is a function which can be performed under executive authority, and so by the council leader.
She then said the regulations were reflected in the county council constitution which, of course, has no more to say about letter-writing than the legislation. What it does say is that executive functions are all those that are not reserved to the full council (such as framework decisions) or otherwise specified in legislation or delegated to another committee.
Maria Price then said that the matter had been brought before a full council meeting only to hear its views so council leader James McInnes would be better-informed when he wrote to the government.
John Hart, repeating the same formula from the chair, said: “We don’t have to have this meeting, the leader has the right under standing orders to do a letter in his own right. We have got here a meeting to give everybody the opportunity to say their views on what’s going on.”
It would seem, then, that the county council called the meeting to make a framework decision, failed to publish the report on which the framework decision depended until less than 24 hours before the meeting convened, then told everyone present that it was not making a decision at all.
It’s rather odd, then, that the county council issued a decision notice later that day exactly as if it had made a decision. And whether it made a decision or not, its legal obligations when it comes to publishing meeting documents remain unchanged.
Presumably its position is that it wouldn’t make any odds if push came to shove over the legality of the meeting as the letter council leader James McInnes then sent to central government was his own to write. Let’s hope he didn’t include some of the more egregious claims he made during the meeting.
Devon County Council 9 January 2025 meeting decision notice. Source: Devon County Council.
Exeter City Council also met later the same day, calling an extraordinary general meeting as a matter of urgency and so, unlike Devon County Council, satisfying its legal obligations when it comes to publishing meeting documents.
Chief executive Bindu Arjoon’s report said that the city council felt its hand was being forced by Devon County Council’s desire not only to charge ahead but also to take charge of dissolving Devon’s districts on their behalf, as the county council had confirmed earlier that day.
It expressed the city council’s opposition to a single Devon unitary authority, its expectation that the government would agree to waive the 500,000 population threshold for an Exeter unitary based on “the council’s significant achievements to date” and its support for a Devon and Cornwall Mayoral Strategic Authority “with a unitary Exeter as a constituent member”.
It also said, optimistically as it turns out, that “the government will not impose reorganisation on any areas” and warned that the “very substantial effort in data collection, research, analysis and case preparation” required to submit its unitary proposals would have an “impact on existing work and priorities”, consuming the council’s capacity to deliver day to day services in the meantime.
Exeter City Council meeting, 9 January 2025
At the meeting, council leader Phil Bialyk wheeled out a well-worn litany of prolific economic performance claims that cite both Exeter’s travel to work area without accounting for its geography and its population growth without accounting for surging university student numbers.
Apparently without grasping how unimpressed Whitehall will be with some of what this sermon invokes as city council achievements, many of which have little or nothing to do with the city council, he said he firmly believes there is a “strong evidence base” to support a unitary Exeter bid.
He also said he believed that Devon’s other district councils “respect” Exeter’s exceptionalism, that he was “trying to tell them” that it would not adversely affect their economic positions and that, instead, “it would be better for them”, without explaining why. He also said he hoped to get the other districts to agree with Exeter going its own way but it might well be that they would not.
He added that he is “convinced government is not for watering down urban cities such as Exeter, economic drivers, together with places like Norwich, Lincoln, Ipswich, Cambridge, Oxford. These are all important cathedral cities, university cities.” While not all these places are cathedral or university cities, what they do have in common is that their councils are all Labour-led under county councils that are not, facing extinction under the government’s reforms.
Despite warnings from opposition benches about the risks of a directly-elected regional mayor, the democratic deficit the planned reforms will create, the likelihood that Exeter exceptionalism is unlikely to make much of an impact in Westminster and the risk that the government will impose reorganisation if Devon’s councils cannot agree, the city council backed the proposals.
The next day it wrote to government to oppose a single Devon unitary, support a peninsula mayoral authority and throw Exeter’s hat into the unitary status ring.
It did not oppose the cancellation of the local elections or the county council’s fast-track application, despite city council leader Phil Bialyk signing the district councils joint statement the week before.
His party’s position was made clear at County Hall, when county council Labour group leader Carol Whitton voted in favour of both earlier that day, as did Tracy Adams and Yvonne Atkinson.
Marina Asvachin and Su Aves nevertheless both voted against while Danny Barnes was, as so often, simply absent.
North Devon District Council meeting, 9 January 2025
West Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon, East Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge and Torridge district councils all also held council meetings in the first week of January, their hands all also forced by peremptory hubris at County Hall.
Several of their leaders criticised the county council for stonewalling Devon’s district councils since the publication of the white paper, and for cancelling the first formal Team Devon joint committee meeting without explanation while failing to publish its plan to postpone the local elections.
Some pointed out that government officials had said Devon was not expected to apply for the fast-track devolution priority programme as the Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority would automatically become a foundation strategic authority under the new system.
Others said that the government’s intended timetable was post-haste whether fast-track or not, and that a new strategic authority could hardly be needed in Devon as a matter of urgency as the Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority had only just been agreed.
Mid Devon District Council leader Luke Taylor said, in his report, that the county council’s plan to postpone the local elections would “cast aside” the view of nearly a million Devon residents “in the interest of a political party holding onto power as an unelected administration”.
He added: “Without a clear public mandate for change, reorganisation of the scale needed represents an undemocratic centralisation of power away from local communities.”
Councillors in North Devon nevertheless observed that the Labour leaderships in Exeter and Plymouth were already discussing their expansion plans with the government in private.
Others in Torridge said that the government had effectively already approved these plans, to ensure both Labour-led councils would have significant influence over subsequent strategic authority decision-making, and that all that remained was to discuss how to deal with the rest of the county.
Torridge District Council meeting, 9 January 2025
All seven districts passed resolutions opposing a single Devon unitary and the postponement of the local elections.
Some highlighted the importance of public consultation based on proper evidence followed by decisions involving all eleven Devon councils, others that the proposed pace of change allows too little time for adequate consideration.
Still others said that Devon devolution had always previously been deemed “too difficult”, the chance of Devon’s councils finding common ground was slim, and the negotiations necessary to find a way forward – towards the consensus desired by the government – would be “potentially divisive”.
Two districts, Teignbridge and East Devon, considered the conflict created by Devon, Exeter and Plymouth all separately pursuing unitary status when the option favoured by most of the districts is the formation of two unitaries dividing the county across a central axis, with Exeter at the heart of one and Plymouth the other.
East Devon District Council leader Paul Arnott said that as neither city’s population was anywhere near the 500,000 threshold specified in the white paper, the only possible reason for the government to agree to either becoming unitaries under the new system would be political.
East Devon District Council meeting, 9 January 2025
On 10 January Mid Devon District Council CEO Stephen Walford then wrote to Jim McMahon on behalf of all Devon’s district council leaders – except city council leader Phil Bialyk.
They questioned whether the government’s plans would “deliver significant efficiency savings or create councils that are necessarily more sustainable and financially viable for the future”, saying this “has certainly not been the case in Somerset or Cornwall”.
They also said that Exeter and Plymouth’s plans meant there was “no consensus at this stage” and so “no clear plan” of action, one of the government’s criteria for postponing this year’s local elections.
They said it is “essential that local elections take place in Devon County Council as planned in May 2025” so the county council might “retain a democratic mandate”, adding that a “decision to cancel the elections would be a denial of democracy.”
Nevertheless, recognising the government’s intent, they said it is essential that “meaningful consideration” be given to how Devon’s eleven councils could be reorganised into “a smaller number of suitably-sized unitaries aligned with government expectations”.
They added that they would together develop “considered and coherent proposals” and submit them in outline by March, as requested.
Devon district leaders devolution letter to Jim McMahon, 10 January 2024
Plymouth City Council, meanwhile, was keeping its powder dry. It also met on 9 January to discuss the white paper but restricted itself to expressing a preference for a peninsula-wide Mayoral Strategic Authority while referring euphemistically to “the necessity to expand the council’s administrative boundaries to achieve the scale required for future sustainability”.
A report from CEO Tracey Lee said: “The alternative of a strategic authority limited to Plymouth, Devon and Torbay, while building on existing collaborative foundations, would be under the 1.5 million that the government has indicated and would not take into account the strategic imperative of the wider peninsula.
“This arrangement would not satisfy government requirements or align with established policy direction. Cornwall’s inclusion is vital to creating a cohesive peninsula-wide strategic authority that truly represents the South West’s unique characteristics and challenges.”
Council leader Tudor Evans said the new system offered an opportunity for the peninsula to speak and act together for the first time, but that the ambitions of all its parts, especially Cornwall, would need to be properly acknowledged.
He added that only the whole peninsula could satisfy the 1.5 million strategic authority threshold specified in the white paper.
He also said that the government’s scale requirements for the new unitaries presented an opportunity for Plymouth City Council to expand its boundaries, but added that it would want to make a case to stay at the centre of an urban authority rather than being subsumed into a larger rural authority.
Torbay Council was more circumspect still. Its cabinet met on 9 January and expressed its support for a peninsula-wide Mayoral Strategic Authority, but resolved little else other than to consider options for its own future in due course.
Council leader Dave Thomas acknowledged that while Torbay Council is already a unitary authority, it would be too small to keep this status under the new system, and said it would be better if all Devon’s councils worked together to agree a way forward, preferably using a shared evidence base rather than making competing factual claims.
Plymouth City Council meeting, 9 January 2025
Cornwall, however, has an altogether different outcome for the peninsula in mind.
Two of its Labour MPs returned from a December meeting with Angela Rayner held to discuss a non-mayoral Cornwall-only devolution deal with the message that Cornwall could either “engage early in the process for a combined authority and a mayor” or “remain on the foundation level” from where it could “campaign for a Cornwall-only footprint” but with “no guarantees”.
However both of them, along with Cornwall’s four other MPs, had only just endorsed a report by the University of Exeter Cornish Democracy Unit backing a devolved Cornish assembly similar to those in Wales and Scotland. The report also proposes a separate police force and a Minister for Cornwall supported by a dedicated civil service.
They’re not alone. The proportion of Cornwall’s residents that identify their national identity as Cornish is rising, to nearly a fifth at the last census, while a recent Cornwall Chamber of Commerce survey found majority support among businesses for a bespoke Cornwall-only devolution deal.
When Cornwall Council met last week it emphatically backed a motion reaffirming its desire for a non-mayoral Cornwall-only devolution deal which “properly reflects Cornwall’s national identity and the national minority status of the Cornish”. The motion also confirmed that councillors “will not countenance any cross-border combined authority deals”.
The mood is febrile. On the day the meeting took place the Conservative administration lost control of the council after one of its councillors defected and Labour MP Anna Gelderd broke ranks with her party colleagues to say that Cornwall should explore all devolution options instead of refusing to communicate with councils in Devon.
All 87 Cornwall Council seats are up for election in May, whether or not Devon County Council elections take place. A decisive vote in favour of increased Cornish autonomy, likely to be a central campaign issue, would render its current position definitive.
Peninsula constituencies - areas, populations & densities
| Constituency | County | Population | Square miles | Population/square mile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camborne & Redruth LAB | Cornwall | 100,254 | 104 | 962 |
| Central Devon CON | Devon | 94,481 | 531 | 178 |
| Exeter LAB | Devon | 104,747 | 13 | 8,026 |
| Exmouth & Exeter East CON | Devon | 103,940 | 95 | 1,099 |
| Honiton & Sidmouth LIBDEM | Devon | 92,665 | 250 | 370 |
| Newton Abbot LIBDEM | Devon | 93,888 | 76 | 1,234 |
| North Cornwall LIBDEM | Cornwall | 99,822 | 494 | 202 |
| North Devon LIBDEM | Devon | 100,505 | 419 | 240 |
| Plymouth Moor View LAB | Devon | 100,876 | 13 | 7,822 |
| Plymouth Sutton & Devonport LAB | Devon | 109,322 | 8 | 13,948 |
| South Devon LIBDEM | Devon | 91,318 | 245 | 372 |
| South East Cornwall LIBDEM | Cornwall | 92,166 | 274 | 337 |
| South West Devon CON | Devon | 97,848 | 152 | 643 |
| St Austell & Newquay LAB | Cornwall | 100,170 | 114 | 882 |
| St Ives LIBDEM | Cornwall | 89,172 | 223 | 400 |
| Tiverton & Minehead LIBDEM | Devon | 92,152 | 494 | 186 |
| Torbay LIBDEM | Devon | 104,303 | 14 | 7,442 |
| Torridge & Tavistock CON | Devon | 96,538 | 630 | 153 |
| Truro & Falmouth LAB | Cornwall | 96,110 | 167 | 575 |
Source: House of Commons Library
So we have Devon County Council, Torbay Council, Plymouth City Council and most of Devon’s districts, including Exeter City Council, supporting a peninsula-wide mayoral strategic authority.
Crucially, however, Cornwall Council – and all bar one of Cornwall’s six MPs – is set against this outcome, a position which might well be strengthened by a May local elections mandate.
What are the chances of the government agreeing bespoke, separate devolution deals for Devon and Cornwall that fail to comply with just about all the criteria set out in the white paper?
Even if Plymouth joined the Devon & Torbay Combined County Authority, as provided for in the regulations passing through parliament, the government has ruled out the Devon-wide foundation strategic authority it would become under the new system becoming, in turn, a mayoral strategic authority. The same applies to the current Cornwall level two deal.
Were the government to give Cornwall a special pass it would have to give Devon one too, as Somerset is already firmly in bed with Dorset and Wiltshire. Then other areas might be inclined think that they, too, deserve special treatment, undermining the strategic purpose of the whole project.
It may well be that the government would be content to leave Devon and Cornwall in the “too difficult” pile for a while, this early in the process, not least because the peninsula’s low population densities and productivity mean that Westminster gets less return per pound for public spending than it does in higher density, higher productivity places elsewhere.
The government might also lose little sleep over keeping the peninsula poorer than other parts of the country because there is very little potential for Labour to pick up parliamentary support here after its 2024 general election high water mark, when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both still won bigger vote shares across the board.
Peninsula constituencies - 2024 general election votes by political party
| Constituency | CON | GRN | LAB | LIBDEM | OTHERS | REFUK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camborne & Redruth LAB | 11,554 | 2,840 | 19,360 | 4,113 | 966 | 8,952 |
| Central Devon CON | 16,831 | 3,338 | 16,770 | 8,232 | 477 | 7,784 |
| Exeter LAB | 6,288 | 5,907 | 18,225 | 4,201 | 660 | 4,914 |
| Exmouth & Exeter East CON | 14,728 | 2,331 | 14,607 | 11,387 | 1,178 | 7,085 |
| Honiton & Sidmouth LIBDEM | 16,307 | 1,394 | 2,947 | 23,007 | 711 | 6,289 |
| Newton Abbot LIBDEM | 12,955 | 2,083 | 7,115 | 15,201 | 2,144 | 8,494 |
| North Cornwall LIBDEM | 14,137 | 1,335 | 2,958 | 24,094 | 277 | 8,444 |
| North Devon LIBDEM | 15,076 | 2,348 | 3,216 | 21,820 | 820 | 8,137 |
| Plymouth Moor View LAB | 12,061 | 1,694 | 17,665 | 1,766 | 0 | 9,670 |
| Plymouth Sutton & Devonport LAB | 6,873 | 3,186 | 20,795 | 2,441 | 1,333 | 7,467 |
| South Devon LIBDEM | 15,413 | 1,497 | 3,066 | 22,540 | 125 | 6,363 |
| South East Cornwall LAB | 13,759 | 1,999 | 15,670 | 8,284 | 263 | 9,311 |
| South West Devon CON | 17,916 | 2,925 | 15,804 | 5,551 | 685 | 9,361 |
| St Austell & Newquay LAB | 13,488 | 2,337 | 15,958 | 4,805 | 932 | 9,212 |
| St Ives LIBDEM | 11,247 | 1,797 | 2,788 | 25,033 | 749 | 6,492 |
| Tiverton & Minehead LIBDEM | 14,819 | 2,234 | 4,325 | 18,326 | 0 | 7,787 |
| Torbay LIBDEM | 13,588 | 1,420 | 3,276 | 18,937 | 234 | 8,660 |
| Torridge & Tavistock CON | 16,049 | 2,350 | 10,765 | 12,099 | 405 | 9,152 |
| Truro & Falmouth LAB | 12,632 | 3,470 | 20,783 | 6,552 | 664 | 6,163 |
| Totals | 255,721 | 46,485 | 216,093 | 238,389 | 12,623 | 149,737 |
Source: UK Parliament
How likely is it, then, that the government will grant Devon County Council’s election-postponing wish and invite it onto the fast-track devolution priority programme?
Apart from the conflicting positions between peninsula councils on strategic authority outcomes, County Hall’s decision to leave so many of Devon’s districts out in the cold hardly demonstrates the collegiate approach the government has made clear is desired, it not required.
Nor has the county council demonstrated the firm grasp of the facts, good governance or responsible judgement that the leadership role it has sought to claim in this context entails.
When Exeter City Council’s exceptionalism is added to the mix, at odds with the the rest of Devon’s districts, it becomes clear, if it wasn’t already, that the peninsula is no more ready for local government reorganisation than it is for further devolution at strategic authority level.
Devon County Council’s fast-track application must surely be refused, providing needed scope for the May county council elections to renew the upper-tier mandate in the context of each party’s professed position on what should happen next.
Peninsula councils - areas, populations & densities
| Council | Status | Population | Square miles | Population/square mile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Devon | District | 156,167 | 314 | 497 |
| Exeter | District | 137,050 | 18 | 7,552 |
| Mid Devon | District | 84,148 | 353 | 239 |
| North Devon | District | 100,543 | 419 | 240 |
| South Hams | District | 90,842 | 342 | 265 |
| Teignbridge | District | 137,074 | 260 | 527 |
| Torridge | District | 68,830 | 380 | 181 |
| West Devon | District | 58,754 | 448 | 131 |
| Devon | County | 833,408 | 2,534 | 329 |
| Plymouth | Unitary | 268,736 | 31 | 8,700 |
| Torbay | Unitary | 139,485 | 24 | 5,734 |
| Cornwall | Unitary | 578,324 | 1,369 | 423 |
| Totals | 1,819,953 | 3,958 | 460 |
Source: Office for National Statistics
What about local government reorganisation below the strategic level? Will the government give its party colleagues in Exeter and Plymouth what they want?
Exeter City Council has, by a country mile, the weaker case of the two.
Apart from its dependence on context-free factoids to support its fanciful “powerhouse” claims, it would behove many of its members to reflect on the governance failings, systemic scrutiny evasions and serial mismanagement of public money and assets that have characterised its past decade.
Exeter is beset by unaffordable housing, low graduate retention and economically inactive over 50’s and experienced among the largest declines in economic activity levels in the country in the ten years to 2021.
It also has among the lowest proportion of private sector jobs, lowest start-up rates and lowest wages in the Centre for Cities index of 63 cities, while wages are falling in real terms.
Expanding its boundaries to capture the additional residents it would need to meet the new unitary population threshold – even if were set as low as 350,000 as suggested in back-channel discussions – would require it to take on all three towns in Mid Devon – 41,000 residents – and all seven in East Devon – another 91,000 – and the 109,000 residents that live in the rural areas between them too.
But the city council has no more experience in managing transport infrastructure, adult health and social care, children’s services or education and schools that come with unitary status than it has in delivering services in rural areas. Exeter is 32 times more densely populated than Mid Devon: the difference is significant.
If the city’s Labour leadership is pitching for an Exeter unitary so it can “take its place in a devolved mayoral strategic authority for Cornwall and Devon, together with Plymouth, as a principal and constituent member”, as Phil Bialyk declared earlier this month, it might need to consider its position more carefully.
Forming a new unitary with a population of 377,000 by annexing Mid Devon and East Devon would probably not give the party the disproportionate strategic influence it seeks. If the most recent elections in each district are anything to go by, Labour would come a distant fourth across the board in its inaugural elections behind the East Devon Independents.
Peninsula councils - election votes by political party
| Council | Last held | CON | GRN | LAB | LIBDEM | IND | OTHERS | Next due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Devon | 2023 | 27,980 | 3,898 | 4,698 | 23,378 | 20,854 | 591 | 2027 |
| Exeter | 2024 | 5,945 | 6,573 | 12,273 | 3,323 | 4,082 | 0 | 2026 |
| Mid Devon | 2023 | 13,811 | 2,793 | 2,212 | 19,451 | 3,286 | 19 | 2027 |
| North Devon | 2023 | 8,041 | 6,508 | 3,003 | 17,501 | 8,158 | 15 | 2027 |
| South Hams | 2023 | 14,359 | 5,733 | 3,521 | 19,931 | 2,299 | 277 | 2027 |
| Teignbridge | 2023 | 16,819 | 4,416 | 4,658 | 28,005 | 18,116 | 721 | 2027 |
| Torridge | 2023 | 8,297 | 3,515 | 2,157 | 7,885 | 11,236 | 536 | 2027 |
| West Devon | 2023 | 9,829 | 4,318 | 1,024 | 2,626 | 6,897 | 130 | 2027 |
| Devon | 2021 | 108,702 | 28,285 | 40,640 | 45,395 | 21,962 | 9,157 | 2025 |
| Plymouth | 2024 | 14,617 | 5,620 | 26,719 | 3,364 | 3,428 | 7,491 | 2026 |
| Torbay | 2023 | 30,891 | 5,751 | 1,422 | 25,615 | 5,962 | 436 | 2027 |
| Cornwall | 2021 | 63,851 | 15,748 | 18,985 | 31,201 | 27,462 | 11,529 | 2025 |
| Totals | 323,142 | 93,158 | 121,312 | 227,675 | 133,742 | 30,902 |
Sources: each local authority. Mid-term by-election results have not been included.
Plymouth City Council has a better case than Exeter for expanded unitary status, not least because it already delivers all the services that Exeter City Council would have to take on from scratch.
The city it governs also has a much stronger claim to relevance in Westminster, not least because of the naval base, and is already twice the size of Exeter. Just adding Tavistock, Ivybridge and new town Sherford, which is is expected to have more than 12,000 residents when complete, to its 269,000 residents gets it comfortably over the 300,000 mark with Labour still in control.
But were the government to allow Plymouth to expand like this, as well as approving some form of limited geographic Exeter expansion that the local Labour leadership thinks would keep them within a shout of electoral viability, enormous tracts of Devon land would be left unaccounted for, stretching from Ilfracombe to Salcombe and from Holsworthy to Axminster.
And apart from the gerrymandering being visible from space, the government would soon be faced with dozens of similar small and medium-sized towns and cities pleading the same case elsewhere.
Could two more Devon unitaries also be created, one centred on Torbay to take in the rest of South Hams and some or most of Teignbridge, the other centred on Barnstaple and covering North Devon, Torridge and the rest of West Devon?
Perhaps, but it’s not clear whether either unitary would have the tax-raising potential and delivery capacity to make things work, and there would be a real risk of the county being divided into two economic status tiers: wealthier and essentially urban, poorer and essentially rural and coastal.
So the twin unitary proposals favoured by all the district councils except Exeter look the most coherent, not least because it appears that the best way to address Exeter and Plymouth’s lack of rural services delivery experience is to merge both with rural councils so that each council type contributes more or less equitably to what would be substantially extended capacities for both.
This way a North Devon unitary with Exeter at its heart and a South Devon unitary with Plymouth at its heart would also each end up with councillors who understand rural residents’ needs balancing councillors who understand the needs of the cities.
Peninsula councils - current seats by political party
| Council | Status | CON | GRN | LAB | LIBDEM | IND | OTHERS | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East Devon | District | 15 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 23 | 1 | 60 | Exeter | District | 3 | 7 | 23 | 4 | 2 | 39 |
| Mid Devon | District | 3 | 3 | 35 | 1 | 42 | ||
| North Devon | District | 6 | 3 | 23 | 10 | 42 | ||
| South Hams | District | 7 | 3 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 31 | |
| Teignbridge | District | 10 | 25 | 12 | 47 | |||
| Torridge | District | 6 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 13 | 3 | 36 |
| West Devon | District | 11 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 31 | |
| Devon | County | 38 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 60 | |
| Plymouth | Unitary | 7 | 2 | 42 | 6 | 57 | ||
| Torbay | Unitary | 18 | 15 | 3 | 36 | |||
| Cornwall | Unitary | 41 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 16 | 5 | 87 |
| Totals | 167 | 35 | 79 | 174 | 97 | 8 | 568 |
Sources: each local authority (as linked, last updated 18 March 2025)
What happens next? Earlier this month local government minister Jim McMahon confirmed that the “government’s starting point is for all elections to go ahead unless there is strong justification” otherwise.
He also confirmed that sixteen county councils and two unitaries have asked to postpone this year’s local elections, and that his department would only agree to do so “where there is a clear commitment to delivering both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe”.
Later the same day, in the House of Commons, Exeter MP Steve Race asked him to explain what would happen “when a county council and a district council potentially disagree on the way forward”.
Jim McMahon said: “It is quite usual for a county council and a district council to disagree on the way forward. From a government point of view, we will consider proposals on an equal basis wherever they have come from - from a county council, a district council or a unitary authority that might change its boundaries.”
South Devon MP Caroline Voaden then said: “Devon has a very complicated landscape, with Labour-run cities, a Conservative-run county and many Liberal Democrat districts.
“Conflicting proposals have already been submitted to the government by the districts and the county, so can the Minister explain how the government will adjudicate between those conflicting proposals and decide which one will come out on top?”
Jim McMahon replied: “In some areas, there may well be a general consensus on the number of unitary authorities, but varying views on the boundary lines. In other areas, we can perhaps expect there to be entire disagreement on both the number of councils that should follow from the proposals and the boundaries that would be drawn as a result.
“At this stage, all we can say is let us see what comes forward. We will try to make the right decision by balancing identity, efficiency and the relationship to devolution going forward.”
New strategic and unitary authorities - timetable
| Date | Fast-track areas | Other areas |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2025 | New unitary authority interim proposals | New unitary authority interim proposals |
| May 2025 | New strategic authority proposals | |
| Oct 2025 | New strategic authority proposals | |
| New unitary authority final proposals | New unitary authority final proposals | |
| Jan 2026? | Public consultations on unitary proposals? | Public consultations on unitary proposals? |
| English Devolution Bill becomes law | English Devolution Bill becomes law | |
| May 2026 | Inaugural mayoral strategic authority elections | |
| New unitary authority “shadow” elections | ||
| New “shadow” unitary authorities prepare budgets etc | ||
| Apr 2027 | New unitary authorities take over, old councils abolished | |
| May 2027 | New unitary authority “shadow” elections | |
| New "shadow" unitary authorities prepare budgets etc | ||
| Apr 2028 | New unitary authorities take over, old councils abolished |
The decision on Devon County Council’s fast-track application is expected this week, as is the publication of detailed criteria for new unitary proposals and a formal invitation to submit them.
Devon District Forum – at which the Devon district council leaders normally meet – has called a meeting next Monday to which the leaders of Devon County Council, Torbay Council and Plymouth City Council have all also been invited, along with the chief executives of all eleven councils.
The aim is to find a way forward that works in the best interests of residents across the county. It will be the first time all the leaders have gathered in the same room since the white paper was published in December.
As things stand, Exeter exceptionalism is putting the region’s residents and businesses at risk, because the government may end up imposing reorganisation if not all Devon’s councils can agree, or may undermine the county’s economic geography to favour the two Labour-led authorities for political purposes.
Rather than leaving Devon’s rural districts out in the cold after trying to annexe enough of its fringes to pass a reduced unitary threshold but avoid Labour losing control of the resulting authority, Exeter City Council should surely accept that common cause with Devon’s other districts is the only route to a solution that works for the whole county, especially in the face the county council’s aberrations.
In the meantime, two things are sure. Scarce local authority resources are already being redirected away from existing work streams, many of which are essential, with years more of the same to come.
And when the government replaces the current two-tier local government system with its new world of principal and strategic authorities, there will still be two tiers of local government. But both will be significantly more remote from Devon’s residents and businesses and less likely to take decisions in their interests, dancing instead much more to the tune of central government.
In Exeter, where a new lower layer on a par with the town and parish councils around it will also have to be created, we will end up with a system that has three new tiers instead of two.
