Commentary on provisions of Act Combined and local authorities: governance, constitution and functions etc Section 15: Governance arrangements, etc. of local authorities in England
Section 15 provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations making provisions about local authorities' electoral arrangements, governance arrangements, their constitution and membership, and structural and boundary arrangements. These regulations may set out how any changes are to apply in particular cases. For these purposes a local authority is a county council in England, a district council or a London Borough council.
	Governance arrangements mean the arrangements an authority operates for taking decisions, namely executive arrangements, the committee system, or prescribed arrangements as provided for under Part 1A of the Local Government Act 2000.
	For structural, boundary, or other changes, the context in which this power could be used is where Devolution Deals, conferring powers and budgets on an area, are agreed by Government with areas where it may not be appropriate for the existing councils to establish a combined authority.
	An example may be where a single county, which may or may not be a unitary authority, covers a functional economic area which may be the basis for a Devolution Deal, and all the constituent councils involved agree that the strong and accountable governance needed for the new powers and budgets to be conferred on the area necessitates simplifying the local government structures for the area. That may involve mergers of councils, moves to unitary structures, or changing the democratic representation of the area with different electoral cycles and fewer councillors.
	This power will enable the Secretary of State to effect those changes simply and efficiently. Regulations under this section are to be made only with the consent of the local authorities to which the regulations apply, except in the case of structural and boundary changes where the consent of only one authority is needed. In non-unitary local authority areas, the Secretary of State may fast track structural and boundary changes with the consent of one local authority within that area; this is subject to a sunset provision, expiring on 31 March 2019, without affecting any regulations made under it. All regulations would be subject to the affirmative procedure in Parliament and may include transitional, transitory or saving provision. In addition, at the same time as the Secretary of State lays any such regulations, he is required to lay a report in Parliament explaining what these regulations do, describing why they are being made, and including details of any consultation taken into account, any representations considered, and any other evidence or contextual information the Secretary of State considers appropriate.