Schrodinger’s devolution
According to WH Auden: ‘To ask the hard question is simple, The simple act of the confused will.’ But when it comes to analysis of the recent history of English devolution, there’s nothing like a heavily loaded, leading question to cut, machete like through the lush thickets of abundant boosterish rhetoric, whose fronds conceal a worrying unevenness.
At the start of this year I was on a panel held in that pinnacle of successful devolution, Manchester, to debate the gloriously leading question ‘is devolution alive or dead?’.
My contention is that, in time-honoured civil service parlance, the situation is worse and the devolution process is ‘doomed to success.’ In Mahayana Buddhist terminology, English devolution is, therefore, in a state of ‘ku’ – a reality or ‘middle way’ duality beyond the polarities of existence and non-existence.
After all, since central government is defining success, it is not too uncharitable to posit that they will get the answers and outruns they want. If success means filling in pieces of a map for administrative ease, regardless of consequences, Whitehall does have, shall we say, a certain form in the game.
On the positive side, the English governance map now looks completely different, having been transformed over a relatively short period of time. It’s now impossible to think of Greater Manchester without Andy Burnham as one standout example.
Mayors have been useful for fighting for local government in place and helped to get tourism levy over the line – a measure that could be the thin end of the wedge in delivering the dream of fiscal devolution for an empowered and economically empowering local state. Mayors are seen in Whitehall as effective delivery mechanisms, something many in local government are relaxed about on the basis this framing will result in the granting of further powers and controls for the local state.
Mayors act as useful flagbearers for the idea that government should not be remote and decisions should be made locally – a concept that represents a huge shift for many people in Whitehall.
It is already more than a decade since then chancellor George Osborne surreptitiously did the Greater Manchester deal with Sir Richard Leese and the late Sir Howard Bernstein, to drive a political wedge and push on with establishing a combined authority footprint across the former metropolitan counties in line with the metro mayoral model which Bruce Katz and the Washington based Brookings Institute had advocated for. (And which, incidentally the urban English electorate had with the singular exception of Bristol, rejected wholescale in referenda held during the Coalition years.)
However, the desire to fill in the map (for the latest evidence see map in Annex B from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s consultation on Strategic Spatial Strategies) is as much a battle against time as a space race.
The consequences of the deeply asymmetric devolutionary arrangement between the countries of the UK, in the quarter of a century that has passed on from devolution to Holyrood and Cardiff and the reassertion of strategic governance for London are scarcely remarked on.
And now, a decade on from then Conservative chancellor George Osborne’s promise of a ‘devolution revolution’ (an early indication of where the political rhetoric was ineluctably heading) to a stunned Monday morning Conservative party conference, the failure to quickly close the gap between the lower hanging fruit of the former metropolitan counties and the rest of England effectively spells out a de-facto multi speed devolution programme. Here it really is a case of metro versus retro.
In the last parliament, when English devolution was promoted under the levelling up agenda, local government secretary Michael Gove would rail against the iniquity of the ‘Matthew Effect’, whereby ‘to everyone who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’.
And this isn’t anything new. The curse of failing to hold a consistent long-term policy for local economic growth has spanned the entire post-war era. It’s what seasoned Whitehall veteran Bob Morris called Britain’s ‘vampiric issue’ – an undead and unsettled question of economic destiny the country keeps trying to settle by driving a stake through its heart, to find it only a matter of time before it rises up to bite once more.
So, devolution is alive and thriving where it’s been allowed to. To combined authorities who have, more has been given in the shape of the challenge of grappling with integrated settlements (which direct around 90 Whitehall spending lines direct from departments to combined authorities). These are for the strong and well governed success stories of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to pioneer on behalf of those in their slipstream, the Liverpool City Region, NECA and the like.
Elsewhere in England, it is fair to say that despite their existence, neither the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough nor West of England combined authorities will be deemed strong enough in accountability or governance to drink from the integrated settlement fountain. Their relative failure can be tied to the lack of institutional maturity and sheer paucity of resources. But at least they are in existence, albeit a country mile or two behind.
As the smoke clears from the government’s U-turn on permitting the cancellation of elections in county/district areas subject to local government reorganisation (LGR), the implications for filling in the devolution map are rather grave.
Lest we forget, LGR, the eradication of counties and districts and the establishment in their place of larger unitaries on public service efficiency grounds, was the price HM Treasury demanded in exchange for MHCLG having the trinkets offered in the English Devolution White Paper. Through its control of the process and the finances, the Exchequer holds the cards here. And while consent isn’t required, any decision to proceed in the face of strenuous local opposition and without granting the incoming council chiefs a chance to set out a formal view on proposals already submitted and consulted on could well prove politically explosive.
With all six of the counties in the devolution priority programme areas (and shadow elections for the East and West Surrey unitaries), the political ramifications after this May’s local elections will feed in to the delay loop. Currently, and until the English Devolution Bill passes into statute, strategic authorities require consent for their creation. However, Norfolk County Council leader Kay Mason’s explosive exit from the devolution plan with neighbouring Suffolk quite possibly marks the start of open season on the cooperation upon which the process meaningfully depends.
Even here in the east, there are positive signs. With the mayoral contests for the newly established strategic authorities to be held in 2028, this gives the likes of the brilliant Tom Walker, former Whitehall warrior and co-author of the Levelling Up White Paper, a two-year head start to lay the groundwork for a purposeful combined authority.
However, even with the presence of capable and dynamic individuals to galvanise the new strategic authorities in the south, we must concede that for reasons of history, geography and political economy, the south is, as Metternich deemed the Italian city states of the renaissance era, a geographic expression, if that.
Incremental, piecemeal, tortuous. As a map filling exercise, English devolution is doomed to success. Just don’t ask when.
About the author
Jonathan Werran has served as chief executive at Localis since May 2018. He has extensive experience in communications and journalism. After five years as a reporter, commentator and features editor for The Municipal Journal, in 2015 he became the first strategic communications officer for the District Councils’ Network. Prior to this he worked in online publishing where he originated a transformation in distributing government press releases, edited a digital only government property and public estate magazine and helped run communications and marketing for anti-poverty charity Elizabeth Finn Care.
Photo credit: Paul Marlow on Unsplash