Local Public Accounts Committees: promised exploration, still no place-based spending scrutiny

Integrated settlements now hand Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities multi-billion-pound flexible budgets, and scrutiny remains each authority's own overview-and-scrutiny committee: part-time councillors reviewing their own mayor, with no audit-linked follow-the-pound capability. The December 2024 English Devolution White Paper committed only to explore the Local Public Accounts Committee model the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny has developed since 2013, and the 2026 Act strengthened overview-and-scrutiny requirements without creating them. The NAO's devolution work flags that accountability arrangements lag the funding flexibility being devolved. No institution examines value for money across all public spending in a place: council, strategic authority, NHS, police.

Devolution's durability depends on visible local accountability. Without place-based, audit-connected scrutiny of integrated settlements, the first mayoral spending scandal will be caught late, and the recentralising backlash would discredit the whole settlement.

Statutory Local Public Accounts Committees for Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities, piloted in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, with independent membership, a small secretariat, and reporting lines to the Local Audit Office and the NAO. MHCLG can make them under the 2026 Act's secondary legislation, and philanthropy could fund a two-area pilot.

// Build together: Counterparty: GMCA or WMCA hosting a philanthropy-funded two-area pilot LPAC before secondary-legislation rollout.

Multi-billion integrated settlements are scrutinised only by part-time councillors reviewing their own mayor, and the designed model has a secondary-legislation window under the 2026 Act.