The Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced in Parliament this week six new areas as part of the Government’s Devolution Priority Programme for England. Among these are:
Greater Essex - including the County Council, its districts and the unitary authorities of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock
Norfolk & Suffolk, including constituent counties and districts.
What does this mean for local government in the East?
Ministers want to see devolution deals rolled out across the region, with one covering Norfolk and Suffolk, and another for the Greater Essex area. These deals will devolve certain powers and funding (e.g. adult skills, housing, local transport, spatial planning) from central to local government to enable strategic decisions and investments about economic development to be made closer to where they are needed.
This will result in the establishment of two new strategic authorities with elected Mayors; one for Greater Essex and one for Norfolk & Suffolk.
The Government also want to replace "two tier" areas - where responsibilities for key services are split between county and district councils - with new unitary authorities. This reorganisation will abolish the current county and district council structure, resulting in fewer but larger single tier authorities.
The number and geography of these new unitary authorities are yet to be determined, but as a guide, they are likely to be formed at a population size of about 500,000. The population of Essex is currently around 1.5 million, while Suffolk is less than 800,000 and Norfolk is less than 1 million.
In order to help authorities meet the tight timescale for these reforms, the Government has postponed county council elections, which were scheduled for this May.
What does this mean for businesses and communities?
Devolution and local government reform can feel like remote and abstract ideas, unrelated to the day to day lives of people and businesses. There are, however, a number of potential benefits for communities and businesses.
The reform of local government and the establishment of strategic authorities will simplify and reduce the layers of bureaucracy, creating more efficient structures in which to deliver services, and to make quicker and better decisions about planning and development for new homes and infrastructure.
Evidence for reorganisation in other parts of the country suggests that economies of scale will also help to cut waste and improve accountability, ensuring taxpayers get better value for money from their services.
Devolution means policy can be tailored to local situations, based on a deep understanding of the regional economy.
What does this mean for the region?
Simplifying local government and aligning the many different boundaries for public services, including health, education, employment and skills will benefit people and communities that are often frustrated by the complexities of these arrangements.
In addition, the prospect of four Mayoral Combined Authorities in the East of England opens the way to thinking about the region in a wider context and how it can be better connected to enable economic growth, distributing opportunities and reducing the inequalities that exist across the East. Improving regional transport between different economic centres in the East could be more achievable with strategic authorities, led by elected Mayors with the vision to develop spatial plans and work across boundaries to make this happen.