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Mayors and combined authorities

Greater Manchester

Councils in Greater Manchester working together on things that cross their borders, led by a mayor everyone in the area can vote for.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is an Established Mayoral Strategic Authority with the functions and funding associated with that tier.

The mayor

Bev Craig Labour and Co-operative Party

Elected on 30 July 2026 at a by-election.

Source: Democracy Club, Mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority by-election (CC BY 4.0), read 26 October 2026. This is who won the most recent mayoral election; if the post has changed hands since without an election, this page won’t know yet.

Next mayoral election: Democracy Club hasn’t listed it yet.

What the government says about the next election

The Mayor is elected on a 4 year term. The last election was in May 2024 with the next election scheduled for 2028. This will be done by Supplementary Vote, as will further elections.

What it decides

The law gives every authority of this kind powers under these headings:

Headings as printed in the government’s Devolution Framework Explainer: Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities (Open Government Licence v3.0), which lists each power under them. Which of them this authority uses, and how, is in its own papers.

Do all combined authorities do the same things?

The specifics of the powers of MSAs vary from place to place but typically include aspects of transport, skills, housing, and local infrastructure investment, and in some cases spatial planning, policing, health and employment support.

Police

The Mayor of GMCA is responsible for Police and Crime Commissioner functions.

Fire and rescue

The Mayor of GMCA is responsible for Fire and Rescue Authority functions.

What’s different about how it is run

Many of GMCA’s public transport functions are, and will continue to be, exercisable only by the Mayor. Ordinarily, these functions would be exercised by the Strategic Authority. The Mayor of GMCA also has the ability to establish a joint transport committee to exercise their public transport functions (this is currently the ‘Bee Network Committee’). The membership must be made up of members of the GMCA or its constituent councils. All decisions are subject to a majority vote.

GMCA has maintained its passenger transport executive, Transport for Greater Manchester, which provides transport services in its area.

GMCA will also retain some unique functions compared to other Strategic Authorities, including in relation to public health; air quality; waste disposal; education; road safety; bus operator grants; roads; and traffic.

Councils in its area

Its constituent councils are Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, and Wigan.

Every council in its area:

From the ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to Combined Authority lookup (LAD25_CAUTH25_EN_LU) (Open Government Licence v3.0), read 26 October 2026.

Website
greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk (from mySociety)
Meetings and decisions
Not yet read.
Budget
Not yet read.
The mayor's page
The Mayor (the link of that name on its home page, 26 October 2026)
The mayor on Democracy Club
Bev Craig
Cite this page

Harvard style. Every figure on the page also names its original source, which is usually the better thing to cite.

Every authority page has the same sections in the same order. Sources: MHCLG, English devolution: Area factsheets (Open Government Licence v3.0); MHCLG, Devolution Framework Explainers (Open Government Licence v3.0); ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to Combined Authority lookup (LAD25_CAUTH25_EN_LU) (Open Government Licence v3.0); ONS Open Geography Portal, Local Authority District to County and Unitary Authority lookup (LAD25_CTYUA25_EW_LU_v2) (Open Government Licence v3.0); Democracy Club, EveryElection (CC BY 4.0); Democracy Club candidates (CC BY 4.0); mySociety, UK Local Authorities, with WhatDoTheyKnow home pages (CC BY 4.0 / CC BY-SA 4.0); Wikidata, official website (P856) (CC0). Parish and town councils are not covered yet. Corrections: hello@whatsittome.org.