Devolution bill risks forgetting town and parish councils – research

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will dramatically shake up local government in England

A new government bill on devolution risks forgetting town and parish councils along with creating ‘David and Goliath’ battles between small local and newly-created supersized Strategic authorities, according to a new research paper.

Together with Jason Leman from Citizen Network, Middlesex University academics Amy Burnett and Dan Ozarow have co-authored a response to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill which will dramatically shake up local government structure in England.

About 10,000 town and parish councils already exist in England, which cover 91% of the land and 36% of the population. They are the tier of government closest to ‘neighbourhood-level’ communities where town and parish councillors support local groups and facilities.  

Town and parish councils advise on key decisions made by larger authorities and should naturally be an important part of discussions on devolution and future neighbourhood governance, but they are barely mentioned in the new devolution proposals.

The Bill will remove borough and district councils and will establish directly elected Mayors across larger strategic areas. However, whilst the initial White Paper mentioned ‘community’ 650 times and ‘mayor’ (including Mayoral Authorities) 1,824 times, ‘parish council’ appears just 4 times.

Dr Amy Burnett is a Place Fellow for the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub at the University of Birmingham which published the study and a Research Fellow at Middlesex University.

“Town and parish councils have the capacity to innovate with the right resources and powers but under the current devolution proposals they appear to be marginalised. Every time you abolish a layer of government, such as district councils, you are removing an established line of communication with people who know how things work locally. We should be injecting a sense of renewal in the localist level of government without layering on complications. Even though they might be empowering spaces, there are other spaces where empowerment can take place without undermining the architecture of democracy.”

Dr Amy Burnett

Some of the key takeaways and calls from the paper included:

• Unitary and strategic authorities, alongside public services, need to invest in genuinely supporting the local layer of government. About a third of town and parish councils received less than £10,000 from the council tax precept in 2025/26 which after administrative costs means they are essentially operating as volunteers.
• There is a need for town and parish councils to critically reflect on who exercises power and influence within the community, and how to create greater inclusion.
• Town and parish councils are key local institutions which can voice and reflect diverse communities. Raising their profile could attract more diverse and skilled councillors.
• Technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), can be used to analyse council minutes for themes, key actions, and funding opportunities. This would support the ability of councillors and the public to engage, alongside reducing the burden on staff.

Although the Bill seeks to expand the voices of neighbourhoods and community organisations, it will create larger unitary authorities that will significantly mean fewer local authority councillors per residents. Academics fear larger areas will be pitched against smaller communities in big decisions, leading to ‘David and Goliath’ battles between urban and rural areas, large organisations and local communities. 

Dr Dan Ozarow, a Senior Lecturer in HR Management who is also the Mayor of Elstree and Borehamwood and a Labour town councillor, said: “To genuinely devolve power and decision-making, it will require the input of community, and the governance needs to trickle all the way down and empower the unit of local government that is closest to the people. To us, this is obviously the town and parish councils but they have been overlooked in the proposals. Once these larger strategic authorities are created in most areas the locus of power will be even further away from where they were to start with.”

The paper, ‘The Future of Local Democracy’ has been co-authored by Jason Leman from the Citizen Network, Dr Burnett and Dr Ozarow, and published by LPIP at the University of Birmingham. Read the full paper and a blog on the research.

Photo by Ugur Akdemir on Unsplash