Mark Sandford argues that devolution within England offers a means of improving policy outcomes with minimal additional cost, but notes that the detailed practicalities of it will have as much effect on its outcome as declarations regarding new powers. He therefore suggests that changes in governance practice should be a core focus of future research initiatives.

Alongside debates on Scotland and Wales, English devolution was described by Christopher Harvie in 1991 as ‘the dog that never barked’. At the end of 2023, it has very rapidly become everyone’s pet. Both Labour and the Conservatives favour more devolution to local areas in England. Think tank reports extolling its likely economic benefits abound. Hardly any voices can be found making the case for pausing or reversing the government’s drive towards devolving power.

Far less attention has been devoted to examining the practicalities of achieving this end. It is easy to assume that ‘more devolution’ can be legislated into existence, with legal powers regarded as the lodestone of ‘real change’. This post suggests that devolution – expanding the scope of local decision-making within England – depends less on legislative changes and more on a transformation of the machinery of government at a local level. In this regard, developments in 2023 give unexpected grounds for optimism (see a summary of developments in 2023 on the House of Commons Library website). New ideas and practices of government are beginning to percolate into the English devolution agenda – and these can erode tacit assumptions that underlie the centralising tendencies within the British state.

This blog highlights the makings of new machinery of government practices in two aspects of English devolution: central-local relations and the role and scope of devolved institutions. Encouraging alternative governing practices has long been amongst the core rationales for devolving power: not just localised government, but better government. However, this blog also highlights a third dimension of English devolution acknowledged by government publications: accountability and scrutiny, where more enduring conceptual obstacles have yet to be tackled.

Central-local relationships

Much study of English local government has focused on individual aspects of the local authority world – functions, councillors, service provision, finance – and an overall systemic perspective has been rare. No narrative can be found (either in the academic or practitioner worlds) to explain English local authorities’ role within governance as a whole, or to address how they can or should interact with other public bodies or the UK government. Central-local relations in England have long operated on an ad hoc basis, without any constitutional foundation or even a body of agreed principle to which both sides can agree.

The upshot is a gulf in understanding. Local authorities can experience central government as a source of relentless demands, obstacles and financial restrictions – leading commentators to claim that England is not experiencing ‘real devolution’. This has led on occasion to calls for greater ‘autonomy’ for local government, with minimal intervention from above. Equally, central-local relations have historically been a low priority for the UK government too. Alongside his better known ‘dual polity’ thesis, Jim Bulpitt also coined the ‘central autonomy model’. This suggests that the UK government has historically sought autonomy for itself from localities – and that ‘centralisation’ has been ancillary to that aim rather than an end in itself.

Thus neither central or local government has been receptive to the idea that localities could increase their decision-making capacity more easily via partnership than via ‘autonomy’. But there are indications from the latest round of devolution deals that this may be beginning to change, with a number of examples of new means of joint working between tiers of government. The makings of a pyramid of central-local relationships can be discerned:

• Exploration: for instance, the Department for Work and Pensions will ‘consider what role Hull and East Yorkshire could have in the design and delivery of future contracted employment programmes’. (Hull and East Yorkshire devolution deal, page 19)
• Consultation: for example, the government has committed to ‘consulting the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) on the development of future UK Research and Innovation strategies where appropriate and inviting the WMCA to work with the government research divisions on their respective research and development strategies and programmes’ (West Midlands trailblazer devolution deal, page 48).
• Co-design: such as the news that Greater Lincolnshire and executive agencies within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will ‘establish a collaborative partnership… to share expertise and insight across (some or all of) culture, heritage, sport, communities and the visitor economy… in order to maximise the impact of funding and policy decisions’ (Greater Lincolnshire devolution deal, page 48). Taking into account other decision-makers makes for better policy. The executive agencies will still primarily aim to deliver national priorities. 
• System leadership: for instance, Greater Manchester Combined Authority will be established as the ‘central convenor of careers provision’ (Greater Manchester trailblazer devolution deal, page 38). It will not control all programmes and budgets but will set the strategic direction for other bodies that are active in a particular policy field.

These relationships all fall short of full-scale devolution of power and funds. But they signify a novel willingness to develop a language of joint working that has been absent in the past. They offer alternative ways of addressing the issue of ‘duplicated mandates’ – where responsibilities and spending overlap between local leaders and central government bodies. They also operate as a route to build trust between localities and the centre. Enshrining co-design and system leadership in governance practices is potentially a stronger driver of changed outcomes than expansive legislative change.

The role of metro-mayors: beyond contractualism?

English devolution has so far lacked a clear statement of intent or purpose. In 2016 I argued that it was akin to central government contracting with localities to achieve specific, limited outcomes, rather than comprising the development of a new tier of government. However, the recent indications are that the government’s thinking – if not yet the workings of the machinery of government – is beginning to move beyond this type of contractualism.

The government has offered a ‘single financial settlement’ to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, to boost the financial flexibility available to the metro-mayors in those areas. It will be implemented as part of the 2025 Spending Review. This will not constitute the immediate removal of all ring-fencing of funds (see a government memorandum of understanding published in November 2023), but even considering this approach is a considerable step for a public finance system that has historically disregarded territory within England. The memorandum of understanding even includes a dispute resolution process, akin to the ones used by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments. This indicates a level of awareness of intergovernmental relations that is unprecedented in the English context.

Second, the government has identified five ‘themes’ for which metro-mayors are regarded to be responsible: ‘local growth and place; local transport; housing and regeneration; adult skills; and buildings’ retrofit’. Any future funding programmes falling into these themes will become part of the single settlement automatically. This is a break with previous publications, which maintained that all English devolution deals were bespoke and, implicitly, that the government had no fixed ideas regarding the purpose of metro-mayors. The clarity provided by the five ‘themes’ establishes metro-mayors as a more permanent element of England’s machinery of government.

At the same time, the subject coverage of recent devolution deals has begun to move beyond these five themes. Matters such as flood protection, culture, employment support, public health, productivity and exports have appeared, in both ordinary (‘level 3’) devolution deals and the more advanced ‘trailblazer deals’ in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester. This suggests that devolving power to multi-purpose, sub-national authorities with elected leaders is becoming an established policy option across government.

The pace of this type of change is incremental. Within the devolution deals, the options of ‘co-design’ and ‘system leadership’ are the exception to the rule. But the emergence and acknowledgement of these types of idea open the doors to new practices that were unlikely to have emerged under previous conceptual frameworks.

There are also more prosaic pressures at work. Eighteen areas have devolution deals in place at the time of writing, and more may emerge. Direct, hands-on management of so many areas would absorb increasing quantities of Whitehall resource. Additionally, some of the additional offers in the Greater Manchester and West Midlands deals include special access to particular policy-making processes. It is not likely that the government would have the capacity to offer this type of access to a dozen or more areas, meaning that this is unlikely to be a scalable or sustainable way of devolving power in the long term.

Beware the democratic deficit

This post has focused on machinery of government issues. However, metro-mayors are elected officials. Part of their effectiveness depends on their electorates’ view of them – and in particular how metro-mayors are to be held accountable.

The government has acknowledged the importance of accountability for metro-mayors in 2023, publishing the English Devolution Accountability Framework and the Scrutiny Protocol. Accountability concerns featured strongly within the trailblazer deals, too. But questions remain – not least because the word ‘accountability’ is rarely clearly defined. For instance, what can a mayor be held accountable for when they are the ‘system leader’ but control over actions lies with other bodies; or when they are part of a ‘collaborative partnership’? How effective can a ‘scrutiny protocol’ be unless local institutions are guaranteed resources and capacity to assess performance?

Perhaps most significantly, how should a mayor balance ‘upward accountability’ to government for specific spending programmes, and accountability to the mayor’s electorate? Government has seen its role in part as providing spending ‘assurance’ – checking the regularity, propriety and value for money provided by metro-mayors. Yet there are points at which this ostensibly technical role can spill over into a form of ‘assurance creep’: business cases in advance of exercising devolved powers, performance metrics, and joint evaluation. Local accountability bodies, such as overview and scrutiny committees, may find it challenging to develop a role alongside government assurance.

Conclusion

The mid-2020s may come to be seen as a critical juncture for devolution of power within England. Its merits are increasingly accepted within government and both major political parties. In a tight fiscal context, it offers a means of improving policy outcomes with minimal additional cost. It has the advantage of being a socially desirable policy: centralisation now has few friends. However, the detailed practicalities of delivering English devolution will have as much effect on its outcome as declarations regarding new powers. Changes in governance practice should thus be a core focus of future research initiatives.

About the author

Mark Sandford is a senior research analyst at the House of Commons Library and an honorary senior research fellow at the Constitution Unit.

Featured image: The counties of England (CC BY 2.0) by The_Virgo.