Devolution drive accelerates as new strategic authorities take shape

England's map of power is being redrawn. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act received royal assent in April 2026, and the government is now pressing ahead with the wave of new mayors and strategic authorities the legislation enables — bodies handed real control over transport, housing, skills, planning and economic growth.

The institutional landscape is already substantial: 13 combined authorities and 6 combined county authorities are now established, with Cumbria and Cheshire & Warrington created in February. Six further areas have been confirmed for the government's Devolution Priority Programme, the fast track to mayoral devolution.

At a glance

• English Devolution Act received royal assent in April 2026
• 13 combined authorities and 6 combined county authorities now established
• New powers span transport, housing, skills, planning and economic growth
• Six areas confirmed for the Devolution Priority Programme
• Cumbria and Cheshire and Warrington combined authorities established in February

What the Act changes

Previous devolution grew deal by deal, each area negotiating its own bespoke package. The Act replaces that patchwork with a standard framework: strategic authorities with defined tiers of powers, a presumption that devolution is available everywhere, and a clearer route for areas to deepen their arrangements over time.

Guidance published on GOV.UK sets out the model. The practical effect is that devolution stops being a favour ministers grant and becomes a settled part of the constitution of English local government.

The powers that matter

The headline competencies — transport, housing, skills, planning, economic growth — are the levers that shape whether places prosper. Mayors can integrate bus networks, direct brownfield funding, tailor adult education to local labour markets and assemble land for development.

Evidence from the longest-standing mayoralties, notably Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, suggests the office's soft power matters as much as its statutory powers: a directly elected figure who can convene employers, colleges and Whitehall in one room, and be blamed or re-elected on the results.

England's asymmetric federalism

The emerging settlement is deliberately uneven. Some areas have mayors with deep powers; others have combined county authorities without directly elected leadership; a shrinking remainder has neither. That asymmetry reflects local choice, but it creates a postcode lottery of institutional capacity.

It also interacts with the parallel reorganisation of councils into unitaries. Between new strategic authorities above and merged unitaries below, the two-tier England of counties and districts is heading for the exit — the biggest structural change to local government since 1974.

The hard questions

Devolution's critics raise two recurring objections: accountability and money. Scrutiny of powerful mayors depends on combined-authority overview committees that are often under-resourced, and turnout in mayoral elections remains modest. Power is moving faster than the mechanisms that check it.

On funding, strategic authorities inherit ambitions without fiscal autonomy: they remain overwhelmingly dependent on Whitehall settlements. Whether integrated funding pots and longer settlement periods follow will decide if the new bodies are governments or delivery agencies.

What happens next

The Devolution Priority Programme areas will move towards their first mayoral elections, and existing authorities will begin exercising their expanded powers under the Act. Expect a steady rhythm of inaugural strategies — local transport plans, housing pipelines, skills agreements.

The test that matters is a decade out: whether places with strategic authorities measurably outperform on growth, housing delivery and living standards. That evidence, not the institutional diagrams, will settle England's devolution argument.