Combined Authorities Order 2026 on Commissioner Pay

If you read the title of this Order and immediately switched off, you are not alone. The Combined Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny Committees, Access to Information and Audit Committees) (Amendment) Order 2026 sounds like pure Whitehall admin. But the change it makes is fairly simple: it tells combined authorities and combined county authorities which independent pay panel must be used when deciding allowances for mayoral commissioners. According to legislation.gov.uk, the Order was made at 12.05 pm on 14 May 2026, laid before Parliament at 3.00 pm the same day, and comes into force on 4 June 2026. That timing matters because it closes a legal gap created by the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 before the new commissioner system starts taking shape.

First, the cast of characters. A combined authority, often shortened to CA, is a group of councils working together across a wider area, usually with a mayor. A combined county authority, or CCA, is a similar structure used in some county areas. Both sit inside England’s devolution system, where some powers move away from Westminster and towards regional leaders. The commissioners mentioned here are not described in the Order as elected figures. In the explanatory note, they are people a mayor of a CA or CCA may appoint to assist in the exercise of mayoral functions. That could sound like a small detail, but once public money is involved, the rules on pay, oversight and who signs off what become important very quickly.

The legal story starts earlier this year. Schedule 3 to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 inserted new rules into two older laws: Schedule 5BA into the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, and Schedule 2A into the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. Those new schedules say CAs and CCAs may create a scheme to pay allowances to commissioners. There is a clear limit built into that system. Before an authority can settle those allowances, it must consider a report from a 'relevant remuneration panel'. The allowances actually paid must not go above the panel’s recommendation. So this is not a blank cheque for mayors. The law already says there must be an outside recommendation and a cap.

What this new Order does is narrow and specific. It amends the Combined Authorities Order 2017 so that an independent remuneration panel already established by a CA or CCA under article 16(1)(b) counts as the 'relevant remuneration panel' for these commissioner allowance rules. **What this means:** the law now points clearly to the panel that should do the job. Without that link, you would have the new power to create commissioner allowance schemes but less certainty about which existing panel was officially recognised for making the pay recommendations. This amendment tidies that up.

That may sound like paperwork, and to a point it is. But paperwork is often where accountability lives. If a mayor wants to appoint commissioners and pay them an allowance, the authority cannot simply pick a figure and move on. It has to look at the independent panel’s report first, and the final amount must stay within the panel’s recommended limit. For readers trying to work out why this matters in practice, think of it as a small guardrail around public spending. It does not stop mayors appointing commissioners. It does not set one national pay rate. What it does is make sure there is an external recommendation and a ceiling, rather than a purely internal decision.

The Order also tells us something by what it does not do. It does not create new overview and scrutiny committees. It does not rewrite audit rules. It does not itself appoint any commissioners. It only adds a new article 17 to the 2017 Order so that the right remuneration panels are formally recognised for the new commissioner system in both combined authorities and combined county authorities. The explanatory note on legislation.gov.uk also says no full impact assessment has been produced because no significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sector is expected. That is a sign the Government sees this as a governance adjustment rather than a major policy change with wide financial effects.

One small detail can still catch readers out: the Order says it extends to England and Wales, even though the bodies it talks about are English combined authorities and combined county authorities. In practical terms, the subject here is still England’s devolution system and the checks around how commissioner allowances are handled. So the short version is this. On 4 June 2026, a technical but useful rule comes into force. Signed by Taylor of Stevenage on behalf of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, it makes sure the independent panels already used in the system are the ones that count when commissioner allowances are considered. If you care about who gets paid from public funds, who checks that pay, and how devolution works in day-to-day government, this is exactly the kind of small rule worth noticing.