What is a strategic planning board?

In the Act

Inserted section 12B applies where the Secretary of State considers it desirable for an SDS to cover the areas of two or more principal authorities.

The Secretary of State may then, by regulations, establish a joint committee of those authorities. That committee is a strategic planning board.

A board may be established only after consultation on a draft of the proposed regulations with:

• the principal authorities that would be constituents
• any local planning authority wholly or partly within, or adjoining, those areas
• the person responsible for an SDS in an adjoining area

While a board is being considered or after it has been decided, the Secretary of State may direct the would-be constituents not to take steps on their own SDSs.

Section 12C says the regulations must name the constituents and the area. They may deal with composition, appointment, proceedings, voting, costs, and other machinery, including applying local-government enactments with modifications.

If either House annuls the establishing regulations, the board is dissolved from the date of the resolution.

In the February 2026 paper

MHCLG described boards as the formal partnership where authorities need to produce one SDS together. The paper said the government expected to consult on the first boards as soon as possible and to make the secondary legislation from summer 2026. Not every board has to be created on the same day.

The consultation tables marked where an SPB was expected:

• Not required for existing and Devolution Priority Programme combined-authority footprints (Groups 1 and 2), and for London
• Required for most Group 3 partnerships (for example Wessex, Kent and Medway, West of England and North Somerset)
• Later for single-county proposals such as Surrey and Hertfordshire, which may need a board only when local government reorganisation takes effect
• To be confirmed for Group 4

See the geographies tables for the consultation list.

What is not in the Act

The Act does not fix how leaders vote, what happens if a constituent objects, or how disputes are resolved. Those are regulation-level questions. Treat any commentary on member vetoes as open until the relevant instrument is published.