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Built into the Government's devolution agenda is a commitment to effectively scrutinise and audit mayoral strategic authorities (MSAs) as they take on greater powers.But, several important questions remain unanswered as to how this will look.For example, what role, if any, will Parliament play in scrutinising mayors' decisions? Will there be enough capacity and expertise at a local level to carry out this work?Audit concernsAuditing looks set to be a particular sticking point in this search for robust scrutiny, suggested National Audit Office (NAO) local government value for money senior analyst Shivam Sood.Such concerns centre around a backlog that continues to impact local authority auditing, which leaves ‘questions around what local auditing will look like for MSAs and who does that value for money audit', said Sood, who was among participants this month in a webinar on MSA scrutiny, organised by think-tank Centre for Cities.The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act has created the Local Audit Office (LAO), to ensure audits across local government ‘are robust, consistent, transparent and timely'.This launched in the autumn and is set to be fully operational by next spring. Already, its chair Bill Butler is in place and he was joined this month by Adrian Crompton as its interim controller.But Sood fears the LAO's attention will be directed on tackling a backlog that continues to impact council auditing, rather than towards MSAs.‘We need to make sure we get to a good place so we can move to a proper and appropriate audit as we move closer to devolution and that audit system is able to look at the value for money considerations,' warned Sood.His comments follow previous concerns noted by the NAO in its summer-published report, Devolution in England: funding and accountability, that the backlogs are causing ‘significant problems with the local audit system'.Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) director of practice, governance and devolution Natalie Rotherham hopes that in the light of such concerns, MSAs' audit committees will ‘take an intelligent view of what information they need'.This could include seeking the views of ‘other external experts' who can be called on to help ‘fill that gap in our understanding and knowledge', should accounts not be signed off in time. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is confident the auditing system will be able to effectively check on MSAs' new fiscal and spending powers. It said the statutory backstop programme has helped auditors ‘focus on more up-to-date accounts', adding that ‘significant progress has already been made and further recovery is expected over the coming years'.But Centre for Cities head of policy and public affairs Jess Tulasiewicz is less optimistic. She said: ‘What is happening to the local audit system is going to take a long time to work out and is a big piece of work'.The MHCLG also admitted that details of how the LAO will be involved in MSA auditing are ‘currently being explored', with firmer plans to be set out ‘in due course'.Local capacityMSAs are already scrutinised through audit and overview and scrutiny committees. Under devolution legislation, the latter will be replaced with stronger local scrutiny committees with greater power ‘to scrutinise mayoral decision-making, delivery and value for money', said the MHCLG. These new committees will apply to established MSAs from April next year and for all MSAs from April 2028. In addition, MSA chief executives will become local accounting officers.However, concerns remain as to whether there will be sufficient capacity and expertise locally to effectively scrutinise MSAs' increased powers and the value for money of their multi-million-pound projects.Victoria Sutherland is deputy director, evidence, at the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth and was another speaker at last week's Centre for Cities webinar.She said: ‘I'm not convinced the pool of people you are drawing on from the local area is the same as the level of scrutiny that parliamentary select committees, for example, can tap into, where there are, say, 150 MPs with expertise in that area.'Rotherham agreed there are issues with capacity locally.‘There is a difficulty with resourcing, having people on the ground in the scrutiny function to help members of the scrutiny committee plan the work programme,' she said.Committee members from local authorities making the step up to probe the larger, often more complex work of MSAs, is another issue.‘They are keen to undertake scrutiny and get to grips with what strategic authorities are about, but that step change between what they are looking at within their constituent authorities and the sheer scale of some of the projects…can be a challenge for members,' said Rotherham.She added that the CfGS is currently looking at what further support can be given to scrutiny officers and committee members.Such concerns were raised last month by the University of Birmingham's City-Region Economic Development Institute, which found almost two-thirds of council and combined authority representatives said their organisation has ‘little or no dedicated expertise' to assess major investment proposals and look at their value for money.But while local scrutiny concerns persist, Rotherham said it is important ‘not to underestimate the knowledge and skills' of local authority scrutiny committee members to understand how MSA's work directly impacts communities in areas such as how local young people benefit from region-wide measures to improve apprenticeships and further education.MPs' involvementCould MPs also be involved in scrutiny of MSAs? Centre for Cities believes there is a willingness among MPs and MSAs for this in some form.‘MPs have shown appetite and attention to being involved in the devolved system as well', said Tulasiewicz.But she added that MPs' role should not be ‘to supervise mayors, telling mayors what to do and questioning why you have done X, Y, or Z' and instead their involvement should be around ‘scrutinising a devolved system more generally'.The think-tank's chief executive Andrew Carter said that ‘a lot of mayors we have talked to are happy to be called to account by Westminster' and ‘there doesn't seem to be any resistance' to this.He added: ‘I think some of them would actually welcome more scrutiny from Westminster as a reflection that what they're doing is worthy of it'.Rotherham agreed MSAs would welcome interest from parliamentarians, but ‘there is a fine line in using local MPs as another source of expertise and not wanting them to mark the strategic authorities' homework', which would ‘undermine the principle of devolution', she warned.Scrutiny of MSAs is also set to be dogged by data issues, said Sutherland.She said there are still ‘quite substantial issues' in terms of timeliness of local data, around economic growth for example, saying that it can ‘take two years to get data on best value.‘It has implications on, can you select the right policy? And also implications down the line, as to whether you can establish if intervention has or has not been delivered,' she added.Local media scrutinyAnother factor around scrutiny of increasingly powerful MSAs is the role of local media to ensure MSAs are being held to account, that good work is promoted and poor practice is flagged up.However, due to dwindling journalist numbers, local media is ‘in a much worse state than it was a generation ago', warned Sutherland.Rotherham agreed that a strong local media is needed to further bolster MSA scrutiny.Recalling her time as a head of scrutiny at Hertfordshire CC, she said she welcomed being challenged by the area's local democracy reporter, who was also important to helping to promote ‘what scrutiny is doing'.Such a strong local media can also flag up issues for scrutiny members to investigate what they may have been unaware of, she added.There is a clear commitment to ensuring MSAs use their new powers effectively and public money is spent wisely. However, as devolution gathers pace, MHCLG may face a significant challenge in ensuring the practical details of how this is achieved are properly worked through.

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DEVOLUTION

The devolution scrutiny challenge

By Joe Lepper | 11 November 2026

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