‘Why Labour needs to empower and resource councils in county areas’

After Labour’s landslide this month, the electoral map has changed. This is especially true for England’s county and rural areas, where the party went from having 19 MPs to over 100.

As the vice-chairman of the County Councils Network which represents councils in those areas, I know that they are often caricatured as being affluent. This is outdated: county and rural areas contain some of England’s most deprived communities, some are former manufacturing hotbeds, and many of their towns and cities suffer from infrastructure challenges.

With 128 Labour MPs now representing England’s counties and forming the backbone of the party’s majority, the government must deliver for communities across those areas in the next five years

County and unitary councils can be a key ally in achieving this – but we must be empowered and resourced, and our recent Manifesto for Counties sets out how to unleash the potential of our areas.

Quick growth wins could be found in devolution

We know the Prime Minister wants a rapid increase in economic growth as a means to unlocking public spending. A ‘quick win’ here could be in devolving more powers to more places. Many of the Labour MPs elected on 4 July have served as local councillors and council leaders: they know that local leaders make better decisions about their local areas.

However, we are too often we are stymied by a lack of levers to pull: we want more powers in fiscal devolution, employment support, in green growth and jobs – and more.

To achieve this quickly, Labour can build on what has worked in devolving powers in England’s counties.

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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: before 2022, only a handful of places were able to agree deals but fast forward to 2024 and 15 areas have, including in the East Midlands which has elected a Labour mayor. This has been achieved through using county geographies as the building blocks.

The English Devolution Bill suggests government will continue in this vein, which will be music to the ears of the remaining 50% of England without a devolution settlement in place. The Deputy Prime Minister has also said she will continue with the county combined authority model. With those building blocks in place, we want to see every remaining county area given the opportunity to agree a settlement by 2027, and more powers available to those areas who have devolution.

For areas where a mayor has been proven to be unsuitable, that is no reflection on local leaders’ lack of ambition for their places. Councils in county areas can bring plenty of ideas and experience to the new Council of Nations and Regions as we strive for national renewal, so we would encourage government to incorporate our voice as much as possible, irrespective of whether counties have mayors or not.

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We also know that the government will look to overhaul the planning system, with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill announced. Much has been made of housebuilding targets, but if the government is serious about building 1.5m homes over the course of this Parliament, then infrastructure must be as much of a consideration as housing numbers.

It is imperative that reform finds better a way to capture infrastructure funding that both enables development and mitigates the pressures that new housing places on existing infrastructure and services.

Most importantly, Planning reform should be done with councils as key partners, rather than imposed on us.

Public service reform 

Upper-tier councils across the country are seeing major rises in demand, particularly in children’s services and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The case for reform is overwhelming. We want to offer our help in designing systems that are sustainable over the course of this Parliament and beyond.

This is why we will be straight out of the blocks in setting out a blueprint for reformed SEND provision which re-focuses the system on ensuring mainstream schools are more inclusive, as well as changes to the tribunal system that only allows a panel to rule once all costs to local authorities are considered. In children’s services, we need this government to be bold and brave, adopting our proposals to intervene in the residential care placements market to curb excessive costs to councils in a supply-and-demand market, and to cap excessive profiteering from private providers.

Funding pressures

We know that the public finances are tight and we understand that reform comes with a price tag. But any expenditure must be viewed as an investment: helping councils reduce theirs, and the public purse’s costs.

Importantly, reform of care and SEND services and improved funding will free up more resource for us to invest elsewhere, such as libraries and highways maintenance. We know that a proper long-term schedule of highways maintenance work will reduce the need for inefficient emergency pothole repairs, but funding pressures and short-term settlements over recent years have restricted councils’ ability to invest to save.

Councils in county areas face a funding gap of over £2bn over the next 18 months. This will severely impact on our ability to deliver national renewal in our areas, from investing in our economies to transitioning to net-zero.

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The Prime Minister’s pledge to create multi-year settlements is welcome (and this should be extended to long-term transport funding).

Councils could do so much more if this were combined with additional funding over the course of this Parliament.

The government must consider the needs of England’s county and rural communities – as well as our areas’ potential. We can boost productivity, we can help with the net-zero transition, and we can reform our public services so they are more effective.

If we are given the powers and funds we need, we can help the government achieve its ambitious objectives.

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