The government’s English Devolution White Paper, Power and Partnership: Foundations for Growth, published on 16 December 2024, stated that the government wants all remaining two-tier areas in England to be eventually restructured into single-tier unitary authorities.
This continues a trend of several decades towards larger single-tier local government in England. Previous rounds of restructuring took place in 1992 to 1995, 2008 to 2009 and 2018 to 2021.
This Insight looks at some of the details of how local government restructuring is likely to take place.
What is the current system of local government?
Currently, local areas in England can have single-tier local government (known as ‘unitary authorities’) or two-tier local government (composed of district councils and county councils). Each county council area has multiple district councils within it.
Unitary authorities carry out all local government functions, whereas two-tier areas have some functions carried out by the district council (such as planning and waste collection) and some by the county council (such as education and transport).
How would councils change under the plans in the white paper?
The white paper says the government wants to restructure all two-tier areas so that they become unitary council areas.
The government also wants to restructure “unitary councils where there is evidence of failure or where their size or boundaries may be hindering their ability to deliver sustainable and high-quality services for their residents” (p100).
At the time of writing, we do not know what new unitary councils will be created or what areas they would cover. The map below shows the remaining two-tier areas in England.
The white paper says that the government does not intend all areas to restructure at the same time, but that it “will deliver an ambitious first wave of reorganisation in this Parliament” (p101).
How big would the new councils be?
The government expects that this restructuring will lead to fewer, larger councils in England:
For most areas this will mean creating councils with a population of 500,000 or more, but there may be exceptions to ensure new structures make sense for an area, including for devolution, and decisions will be on a case-by-case basis. (p100)
This is in line with what has happened when other areas have been converted from two-tier to single-tier systems since 2008. This can be seen in the table on page 14 of the Library research briefing Local government in England: structures. For instance, in Dorset, seven councils were replaced by two in 2018, reducing councillor numbers from 331 to 158. In Buckinghamshire, five councils were replaced by one in 2021, reducing councillor numbers from 236 to 147 (to become 97 at the next election). There are no examples in the UK of a unitary local council being converted back into a two-tier system.
It is not clear what the population criterion of 500,000 means for existing unitary authorities. A number of city-based unitary councils that were created in the 1990s have smaller populations than 500,000. Examples include Peterborough (219,000), Stoke-on-Trent (263,000), Plymouth (270,000) and Leicester (380,000).
The white paper also says nothing about the future of unitary counties with smaller populations (such as Herefordshire with 190,000 and Northumberland with 327,000) or smaller authorities in larger urban areas (such as Hartlepool with 95,000 and Stockton-on-Tees with 202,000).
How long will restructuring take?
The length of time from a locality submitting a proposal for unitary local government to the ‘vesting day’ of the new authority (when it formally takes on its powers) is typically between two and two and a half years.
For instance, proposals for Dorset and Buckinghamshire were made to the government in late 2016, and elections to the new councils were held in May 2019. In Cumbria, Somerset and North Yorkshire, proposals were made in late 2020/early 2021 and the vesting day was 1 April 2023 – although the new local authorities held elections of interim ‘shadow councils’ in May 2022.
The white paper says that the government will consider postponing upcoming elections to existing councils where a restructure is agreed.
How does restructuring take place?
The legal process governing local authority restructuring is in sections 1 to 7 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The Secretary of State may invite councils to submit a proposal to restructure themselves into one or more unitary authorities.
The final decision on a proposed restructure is made by the Secretary of State. A restructure does not require the affected councils to give formal consent. There is no mechanism for the public to support or oppose restructuring through a petition or a referendum (though referendums have been held in the past).
Previous restructuring proposals have also been subject to judicial reviews of the process initiated by councils facing abolition, such as Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and Congleton Borough Council in 2007, and Christchurch District Council in 2016. Cumbria County Council was denied leave for judicial review in 2022.
Responses from local government
Developing proposals for new unitary councils is likely to be challenging. The County Councils Network welcomed the white paper, but said the restructuring must ensure councils’ financial viability with minimum disruption to services:
…it is imperative that reform ensures that new unitary councils have the size and scale necessary to deliver substantial long-term savings, minimise disruption to care services and maintain strong tax bases well into the future. Any decisions on local government reorganisation by ministers must be evidence-based and ensure that county councils are not split into multiple small unitary councils….
The District Councils’ Network was critical of the direction of travel in the white paper, saying that it would not work for rural communities:
It will lead to geographically vast councils that are remote from local communities…This level of population may be suitable in large cities. But in most places we do not think it is workable, especially in rural communities which risk losing access to services and viable local democracy.
Do unitary councils save money?
It is not clear from available evidence whether unitary councils save money compared with a two-tier system. International experience suggests that, when councils are merged, sometimes the merged council saves money and sometimes it does not.
In England, estimates published by the consultancies EY (formerly Ernst and Young) (2016) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2020) suggest that unitary councils could save roughly £20 million to £25 million a year compared with their predecessors. These estimates take into account the costs of the restructure itself, which are large in the short term.
Further information
Further information can be found in the Library research briefing Unitary local government and in the Institute for Government explainer Local government unitarisation.
About the author: Mark Sandford is a researcher at the House of Commons Library specialising in local government and devolution in England.