Snap analysis: The English Devolution White Paper
It’s finally here – an English Devolution White Paper (EDWP), 118 pages long. The ultimate Christmas gift for the local government policy nerds, and the biggest shift in local government policy since… well, since the Levelling Up White Paper, actually, which came out a million years ago (2022).
The EDWP has much less narrative and analysis in it, but the family resemblance is there. There is some genuine ambition in these plans, and — whisper it! — a coherent vision for much more assertive local systems as a genuine counterweight to the norm of Whitehall dominance.
The paper strikes a balance between the shiny, visible baubles of new powers and resources (and there will be some who are disappointed with what is now on offer, even if it does represent a step forward), and the less glamorous, but deeply important, underlying structures that everything must hang off.
Fundamentally, this is a White Paper of two parts: a promise to devolve more powers to a bigger, broader set of regional institutions, and a major move toward reorganisation of the older system of local authorities that sit beneath.
The EDWP sets ‘Strategic Authorities’ as the new vehicle for devolution. They come in a variety of flavours – from “foundation strategic authorities”, which don’t (yet?) have a directly elected mayor, or might only be a large local authority with strategic responsibilities, to “Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities”, Combined Authorities that have been around long enough to be ready to take on the prize of a Trailblazer-style integrated funding settlement.
The reorganisation (read: simplification and upscaling) part of the paper is the more unexpected component. Notably, it is not backed up with any clear mechanism to compel unitarisation of two-tier areas (always controversial).
We should be realistic about what the promise is here. Reorganisation to larger basic units of local government will not provide a magical source of efficiency savings to resolve the financial crisis, and it will make the general lack of hyperlocal-scale governance all the more obvious. But this is a change which reflects a genuine need for a more streamlined, transparent, and deliberate design for the system as a whole.
What the EDWP is not, however, is a model for ‘devolution by default’. This is the tagline adopted by Government since the King’s Speech (one which also happens to be at the heart of Reform’s own work in this area). In many areas, devolution will still be at the whim of central government decision makers.
A couple of examples: Mayors will now be able to request devolution of “services, infrastructure, and station control”. But the ability to request is not the same as control by default. Mayors will also eventually be able to “propose” that they take on any new initiatives that fall into their areas of responsibility, “effectively giving them first refusal on new policy initiatives” — but the power to propose is not the same as having first refusal.
Read on for our snap analysis of the rest of the paper.
👍 GOOD FOR
More decisive regional authorities
The areas of competence for Strategic Authorities are set to grow, and the list of responsibilities closely resembles the one we recently set out for regional-scale governance in What Powers Where. To govern effectively across these, there is an understanding that Strategic Authorities will need to be able to operate without being vetoed too often by constituent authorities. Instead, these authorities will make decisions by simple majority vote. This is not some technical change, but a major shake-up of the distribution of power in England. One important qualification, though — these strategic authorities, with populations of 1.5 million or above, will often be quite small. Arguably too small for some of the big strategic functions which they are expected to take on, and there is much less in this paper than expected about pan-regional structures for collaboration between Strategic Authorities.
Taking Whitehall out of the equation
The White Paper asserts that the need for the Secretary of State to consent to powers and byelaws should be reduced as much as possible. It correctly recognises that in many cases requiring sign-off is “irrational, costly and inefficient” and unnecessarily involves central government in local decisions. Examples include sign-off for implementing new bike lanes and licensing schemes to tackle issues involving private rental sector. This is a welcome shift towards decentralisation and demonstrates increased faith that local areas are best placed to decide on local issues.
Getting tough about ‘filling in the map’
The project of ‘filling in the map’ will now be given some extra teeth, with new legislation to ensure that central government can directly impose strategic authorities in any place where they don’t yet exist. The EDWP makes it clear that this will be a matter of last resort, used in places where all other routes have been exhausted. This is an understandable approach, given sensitivities, but it could still make the establishment of comprehensive, root-and-branch regionalism a very lengthy project indeed.
Ambitious housing powers The ambitious approach of shifting housing powers to Mayors is welcome, including new development management powers (similar to those of London’s Mayor), more control of grant funding to support regeneration and housing delivery, and the ability to set the strategic direction of future affordable housing programmes. These are changes commensurate to the scale of the challenge and indicate how devolution can be used as a tool to solve a national issue and help Government deliver its missions.
👎 BAD FOR
Answering the ‘how’ question
Despite pre-publication hints that the White Paper would tackle the big issues, in many areas we are left wanting on the detail of how. The Paper promises it is “looking at” reforming the funding system, and says it “will” transform the audit system — key issue areas in need of reform, as identified by our papers on local government finances and audit. The same treatment is given to children’s social care, pan-regional partnerships, and more. This ‘we’ll fix it when we paint it’ mentality for core parts of the agenda could easily backfire.
Rebooting local audit
As Re:State has recently argued, the local audit system is in desperate need of a fresh start, with huge backlogs of unaudited accounts deepening the sector’s financial crisis and this year making it impossible for the ONS to sign off on the Whole of Government Accounts for the first time. For what it’s worth the analysis in the EDWP agrees. But while we thought that the Office for Local Government was well placed to evolve into a (much less micromanagerial) successor to the Audit Commission, the Government’s plan is to start again from scratch: a more ponderous approach to achieve the same basic objective.
Health devolution
The English health system is significantly overcentralised. Re:State has argued for radical devolution, with Regional Authorities ultimately taking control of the relevant budgets, in line with the best available evidence. We didn’t expect to see this reflected in the EDWP, but the ideas that are here are a let down. They revolve around the “expectation” that mayors should be part, and “considered for” chair, only of chronically underpowered Integrated Care Partnerships. Integrated Care Boards are where the action is — and the paper merely suggests that Strategic Authorities play a role in the appointment of ICB chairs. This won’t be anything like enough to align health systems with local public services.
⚖️ Jury’s out
Getting reorganisation right
The case made here for a push towards reorganisation is compelling. It could simplify structures, improve accountability, and increase efficiency. However, the language surrounding reorganisation implies that unitarisation will be voluntary, with no indication of what will happen if authorities never reach agreements. The centre will “facilitate”, and it hopes for a “first wave” of reorganisation in this parliament. The idea of this bringing about substantial structural change by itself is optimistic, to say the least. In addition, while the paper has a small section with some positive language on the need for community empowerment after unitarisation, there is not enough detail about how this will be achieved.
The end of deal-making
Bespoke deals have been the default approach for devolution for years, and it is a signature part of the new Government’s approach to get past this. This is generally welcome, because deals would sometimes set up the wrong incentives for the participating local authorities, and would be hurt by the wider power differential between central and local. But ending deal making means we need a comprehensive way to identify the ‘readiness’ of local places. The EDWP gives us thresholds, but minimal sense of the machinery which will help assess, and build, system readiness. In addition, one of the advantages of the deal-making approach was the ability to tailor a ‘package’ of devolution to the needs and priorities of a given place. The new framework is less granular, and may offer less scope for this tailoring.
Real financial autonomy
Re:State warmly welcomes the continuing rollout of trailblazer-style integrated settlements at the regional scale. But it remains to be seen whether the complex negotiations on these pots — which should reach fruition with the Spending Review next year — will actually result in settlements where local systems have autonomy to decide how to allocate their resources to the priorities as they see them.
🧐 MISSING IN ACTION
Tax powers
The opportunity has been missed for fiscal devolution, with even the baby step of tourism taxes reportedly blocked by the Treasury. True maturity — and financial stability — will elude our Strategic Authorities until at least the barest elements of fiscal devolution have been realised: a matter explored in Reform’s recent report.