Big changes lie ahead for local government in our area. All 14 of the county’s principal authorities – the 12 district, city and borough councils, Kent County Council (KCC) and the one existing unitary authority, Medway, will be affected. The exact detail of what will come next is still to be determined.
The trigger for all this is the government’s devolution White Paper, published just before Christmas. The government wants all parts of the country to be represented by an elected mayor, working alongside a new strategic authority. Together they would take on additional responsibilities devolved from Westminster. This has already happened in city regions like Manchester and Birmingham, and more recently in places like the West of England, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Now the intention is to fill in the gaps.
The new structures will be given powers over transport and local infrastructure, housing and strategic planning, skills and employment support, economic regeneration and economic development, with an intention to deepen their role over time as they become established.
Generally speaking the prospect of devolution from government to regional level has been welcomed, because existing arrangements leave areas like Thanet at a disadvantage in promoting growth and there is a view that the current arrangements are no longer fit for purpose. There is confusion about which council does what, and responsibilities sometimes overlap. Thanet issues council tax bills overwhelmingly decided by KCC, which gets most of the money. There are also savings to be made by having fewer senior managers and councillors.
It would make sense therefore to move from the current arrangements to a smaller number of unitary councils. Each unitary council would deliver all the current KCC and district-level services and also be represented on a new strategic authority to work alongside the mayor. As in other areas with devolution settlements already, there would not be direct elections to the strategic authority. It would comprise representatives from the relevant councils.
In the short term, and following meetings held this week, KCC and Medway will ask the government to make Kent a priority area for devolution. The county could be an attractive priority candidate for devolution because the boundaries of the new mayoral region are obvious, which is not always the case elsewhere. A range of public services, such as the police and fire and rescue, as well as the NHS, already operate on the same footprint.
Thanet is not a decision-maker in this, but in reality the decision is about timing, not direction of travel. If the government agrees, there will be an election for a county-wide mayor in May 2026, with the establishment of a strategic authority at the same time.
Later this month, the government will also invite the 14 Kent councils collectively to submit one (or potentially more than one) scheme for their reorganisation. The government has stated that an indicative proposal would need to come forward in March 2025, with a confirmed version to follow in the autumn. This would be followed by a formal consultation.
The government has said that it wants the new councils to have a population of at least 500,000, which is bigger than current unitary councils in England. Ideally, it also wants to use existing district boundaries as building blocks. However, there could be exceptions where they can be justified.
Thanet’s options are limited by its location. It is too small to form a unitary council on its own, and will need to combine with a number of its neighbours to reach the threshold. The specific details of this are still to be discussed and agreed, but the outcome in our case is going to be at least partly dictated by geography. No council can make unilateral decisions about it.
There will be questions about the extent to which town and parish councils could take over some local services, and at what cost. Their current capacity to do so inevitably varies, as may their appetite for it.
Creating a Margate Town Council, which Thanet already proposes, would become an even bigger priority.
There are also practical considerations such as how historic debt and reserves among the existing councils (including KCC) are to be taken forward. Given levels of relative deprivation, there are questions about how sustainable the East Kent tax base is. There is the matter of how many councillors are needed and about the boundaries to be used for elections. The number of voters per councillor will need to increase significantly. This in turn begs questions about effective representation.
There are currently no plans for the new unitaries to have their own elected mayors.
Given the level of change it is important to keep staff, councillors and residents informed, and for the council to carefully consider its options.
Thanet is holding a briefing for its councillors later this month and information will continue to be shared with both councillors and staff as this becomes available.
At this stage, no local decisions are being taken. The government will be required to consult formally on the new devolved structures, as well as reorganisation of existing councils.
The current expectation is that shadow unitary councils could be elected in May 2027 to appoint senior officers, arrange to transfer existing staff, identify the facilities they need and set a budget for the following year, with the new councils taking over fully in 2028.
There is clearly a lot of work to be done before any of this can happen. In the meantime, it is very much business as usual in Thanet and will be for some years to come.
