Berkshire councils commit £8,000 each to devolution budget

The budget set aside to explore the creation of a Thames Valley strategic authority will get a £48,000 uplift – with a £8,000 contribution from each Berkshire council.

In its devolution white paper, the Government announced plans to reorganise councils across the UK and introduce strategic authorities –  a decision-making tier of local government covering a much wider area.

Slough Borough Council and the Royal Borough have expressed their interest in forming a Thames Valley mayoral strategic authority alongside other Berkshire authorities, Oxford and Swindon.

At a Berkshire prosperity board meeting on Monday (March 16), leaders of the six councils in the county heard the devolution budget will be uplifted by £48,000.

This represents a £8,000 contribution from each council to move forward discussions with ministers around devolution.

But a Maidenhead resident, Andrew Hill, had concerns about where this money would come from.

Mr Hill said: “Eight thousand may not sound like a large amount in the context of a council budget, but it’s still taxpayers’ money and taxpayers reasonably expect clear explanations.”

Paul Patterson, Wokingham Borough Council’s director of devolution, said this extra funding will be covered within the existing prosperity board budget.

Mr Patterson said: “There was a central budget set up originally to develop the thinking around what the opportunities were around a mayoral authority.

“This work and this uplift to the budget is from the existing prosperity board budget, so it’s not requesting any additional funds.”

Councillor Simon Werner, the Royal Borough’s council leader, reassured Mr Hill.

He said: “Windsor and Maidenhead don’t have any money to spend on investigating the mayoralty on the prosperity board.

He added: “My understanding is, this money is coming out of the interest held from the LEP (Local Enterprise Partnerships), which is quite substantial, so it’s not costing us a penny and it’s not committing Windsor and Maidenhead in future to spend any money.”

The prosperity board replaced the area’s Local Enterprise Partnership – which saw local authorities and businesses work together to prioritise economic growth –  after central government funding for LEPs was withdrawn in 2024 and their functions transferred to local councils.

As part of the ongoing devolution discussions, Councillor Dexter Smith, Slough’s council leader, attended a meeting with Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Minister for Devolution, Faith and Communities, last week.

Cllr Smith said: “She continued to impress upon us the view that we can get what we wanted in terms of devolving of powers and budgets as a foundation strategic authority rather than a mayoral strategic authority.

“However, to reassure us, if we felt that we still wanted to move on to a mayoral strategic authority, we could do that fairly simply at any point.”

In February, the Government made a statement asking councils to put forward an expression of interest for foundation authorities.

A foundation strategic authority is a non-mayoral set-up. Councils can work together formally, but without an elected mayor.

Because there is no mayor, the Government only passes down limited powers and funding. It is essentially a way of getting a foot in the door on devolution, but it does not unlock the bigger budgets or control over things like transport and long-term investment.

A mayoral strategic authority is the full version. It covers a wider area, has an elected mayor, and comes with much stronger powers and more funding from central Government.

Mr Hill said: “So, there is no longer a straight leap into having a regional mayor.

“That’s particularly significant because all the councils here were inviting your members to vote on and submit the expression of interest before this [Government] statement was made, largely.

“So, your councillors are potentially now operating under the false assumptions about what they were voting for with that expression of interest.”

He said councillors should vote again on a fresh expression of interest in ‘full possession of the facts’ around the difference between the two authority types.

But Susan Halliwell, Bracknell Forest Council’s chief executive, explained that having a foundation authority is part of the process.

She said: “In the devolution white paper the Government did clearly set out the trajectory to get to a mayoral strategic authority – one of the steps would be a foundation strategic authority.”