Unitary authority meaning

Background The Bill sits within the government’s wider drive to devolve power and bolster decision-making at local and regional levels. This programme was trailed in the King’s Speech and taken forward through the English Devolution White Paper of December 2024, which proposed handing substantial planning and infrastructure responsibilities to newly designated strategic authorities. The White Paper pledged to reinstate strategic planning across England, after years without a cross-boundary framework beyond London. It further set out intentions to finish the devolution map, establish a new layer of ‘strategic authorities’, and provide them with more coherent powers for planning, infrastructure, housing and growth. Key planning provisions Strategic authorities and tiers of devolution The Bill introduces a new class of Strategic Authority, spanning Combined authorities, Combined County authorities (CCAs), the Greater London Authority, and specified unitary authorities where designated. These are arranged into three tiers: Foundation Strategic Authorities — for places without an elected Mayor; access to limited functions Mayoral Strategic Authorities — for areas with...

What is LGR? Government data indicates that roughly one third of England’s population—about 20 million people—live in areas run by a two-tier arrangement, with duties divided between county and district councils. According to the government, this set-up can introduce complexity: decision-making is spread across several bodies, services are delivered in a less integrated way, and effort is duplicated. It can also leave residents uncertain about who is responsible for local services. LGR describes the reorganisation of local authorities and may involve moving from a two-tier system (separate county and district councils with different remits) to a unitary model, where one authority undertakes all those functions. The government’s current LGR plans are closely connected to its devolution agenda, aligning council restructuring with the creation of combined authorities or combined county authorities, often with directly elected mayors. The objective is to rationalise current arrangements by replacing two-tier structures with single-tier unitary authorities. This is a significant programme of reform, intended to reinforce local leadership and make governance simpler...

In this issue: Local government reorganisation Public procurement Planning Education Governance Social housing Healthcare Children's social care Adult social care Pensions LexTalk®Local Government: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Local government reorganisation MHCLG publishes implementation letters for unitary local government reorganisation The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has issued implementation correspondence to council chief executives in Suffolk; Norfolk; Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton; and Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock. The letters outline precise expectations for delivering the agreed shift to unitary local government, setting out required actions for councils, funding provisions, and the forthcoming steps in the programme. See: LNB News 31/03/2026 17. IfG insight paper examines mismatch between public service reform aims and implementation The Institute for Government (IfG) has released an insight paper exploring the gap between the government’s declared public service reform ambitions on...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and no longer maintained. STOP PRESS: The UK’s prospectus regime, previously derived from the EU Prospectus Regulation, has been superseded by the Public Offers and Admission to Trading Regulations 2024 (POATRs), with all detailed admission to trading requirements now contained in the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) admission rules. The FCA published its final rules on 15 July 2025, which took effect on 19 January 2026. In October 2025, the FCA issued Primary Market Bulletin 58 which, among other matters, offered guidance on the timetable and approval of prospectuses (and supplementary prospectuses) and confirmed the removal of Listing Particulars as an admission document under the new framework. For more on the key aspects of the POATRs relevant to debt capital markets, see Practice Note: The UK Prospectus Regulation—essentials [Archived]—Reform of the UK prospectus regime. This Practice Note focuses on debt capital markets and summarises the required structure and contents of a prospectus prepared under the current UK prospectus regime. It covers:...

Numerous public registers containing environmental information are required by statute to be created and maintained. These sources hold valuable detail about a business or its assets and provide a practical way to obtain environmental data. They can be used to, for example: check the likelihood of a site flooding without holding a commercial stake in that site view a property’s energy performance information see the conditions of water or waste discharge permits, even when those permits are privately held get details of approved producers or exporters of WEEE access information on producer compliance schemes locate data on packaging types and quantities handled, and waste recovery records Energy performance certificates The Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012 (the EPC Regulations), SI 2012/3118, require the Secretary of State to maintain one or more registers containing: energy performance certificates (EPCs) display energy certificates (DECs) inspection reports recommendation reports The...

Local authorities This Practice Note identifies which local authorities may authorise and regulate on-street parking, stressing that the competence is confined to roads and requires the consent of the highway authority or any other person charged with maintaining the road. It also sets out how councils can impose charges for designated on-street parking places, including through parking meters and other parking devices. At common law, leaving a vehicle on a highway constitutes an obstruction of the public right of passage, yet stopping has always been permitted for loading and unloading, and (for reasonable periods) during meal breaks or where there is mechanical breakdown. In any case, it is arguably not a genuine obstruction (ie not a nuisance at common law) if there is ample space for traffic to pass the parked vehicle. The Road Traffic Regulation Acts addressed this by authorising certain local authorities to allow on-street parking. With permission came regulation and, in turn, parking charges. Outside Greater London, the bodies empowered to permit and control on-street...