2026 precept rules for combined authorities in England
If the phrase ‘consequential amendments’ makes your eyes drift away, the plain-English version is this: the Government has updated the finance rules for some of England’s regional authorities so they can raise a precept for the work of the authority as a whole, not only for work done strictly in the mayor’s name. The Regulations were made on 22 October 2026, laid before Parliament on 23 October 2026, and come into force on 13 November 2026. The instrument, published on legislation.gov.uk and signed by minister Jim McMahon for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, follows a bigger legal change in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.
To see why that matters, we need one key word in plain English. A precept is a charge that can be added to a council tax bill so a public body can help pay for its responsibilities. You do not need to enjoy local government jargon to grasp the point: it is one of the ways public authorities raise money for shared services. This does not mean bills automatically go up on 13 November 2026. The Regulations do not set a new amount. What they do is widen the legal permission behind the charge. In other words, they change what a precept may be used for, and that can shape future budget choices.
The bodies affected are mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities. Those names are long, but the idea is fairly simple. They are partnerships of councils across a wider area, usually with a directly elected mayor, set up to deal with issues that do not stop neatly at one council boundary, such as transport, skills, housing and economic growth. That is why the wording shift matters. The old rules focused on the mayor’s functions. The new rules focus on the authority’s functions. So the money raised through a precept is no longer tied only to what counts as a mayoral job. It can support the broader work of the authority itself.
Most of the legal edits are short, but they do real work. Regulation 2 changes the Combined Authorities (Finance) Order 2017 by replacing phrases such as ‘the mayor’s general functions’ with ‘the functions of the authority’. It also updates the wording on costs, budget notices and related calculations so the 2017 finance rules match the 2026 Act. This is the kind of change lawyers call a consequential amendment. The main law changes first, then older rules are rewritten so the whole system still makes sense. On the page, that can look like small word-swaps. In practice, those word-swaps decide what public money can legally be spent on.
There is also one place-specific change. Regulation 3 removes paragraph (6) from article 6 of the West of England Combined Authority Order 2017. According to the explanatory note, that paragraph had restricted the West of England Combined Authority’s power to issue a precept. That matters because it brings the West of England into line with the wider approach set by the 2026 Act. It does not tell us today what future budgets will be, and it does not announce a new charge by itself. What it does is remove a legal limit that had kept this authority on a narrower footing.
The explanatory note includes another detail worth slowing down for. It says no full impact assessment has been produced for this instrument because no significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sector is expected. That should not be read as ‘nothing changes’. It means ministers view these Regulations as a follow-on adjustment to the main Act, rather than a major policy shift on their own. There is also a legal point that can confuse readers. The Regulations extend to England and Wales, but the policy area they deal with is local government in England. We often see that in legislation: the legal extent and the day-to-day policy effect are not always the same thing.
**What this means for you** is simple. From 13 November 2026, the law gives mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities in England more freedom to fund the authority’s wider functions through a precept, instead of limiting that tool to narrowly defined mayoral functions. For anyone trying to follow English devolution, this is a useful reminder that funding rules matter just as much as the big speeches. Powers only matter if there is a lawful way to pay for them. If a legal change affects who can raise money, what that money can cover and how clearly local people can trace it, then it is worth understanding.