Devolution for England: has the time come?

England has a very centralised system of government, one of the most centralised in Europe. The largest nation in the United Kingdom, with 84% of the population and 54% of the land mass of the UK, is administered by a patchwork of institutions, arms-length agencies (all the OFs, Environment Agency, National Highways etc), quasi-autonomous bodies (Quangos), as well as commissioners and mayors. What would devolution for England look like?

The Institute for Government (IFG), a think tank, describes the level of centralised administration in England. In the preamble to their report entitled ‘A new deal for England and how the next government should complete English devolution’, they state that there is a consensus on devolution for England. Unfortunately, that is a case of the devil being in the detail. All political parties have signed up to localism or devolution, but progress has been limited and patchy.

In my brief correspondence with the IFG, they suggested that the ‘Department of Levelling Up and Communities’ was particularly keen to devolve, but this willingness to devolve has to come with resources or the means of accessing adequate resources. The growing adult social care crisis of underfunding shows that local authorities do not have enough money to meet local needs. Central government sometimes takes over sources of local funds, such as the proposal by the Department of Transport to take income from motoring fines which may endanger the issue of ‘Freedom passes’ in London.

Devolution deals and democracy

If there is to be power to the people, do the people of England want it? In the government Devolution Factsheet, England is barely mentioned, apart from reference to ‘decentralisation deals’. The Devolution UK historical perspective paper from Dr Andrew Blick of King’s College points out that ‘local government’ dates back to the Anglo-Saxon period but the doctrine of a ‘Sovereign Parliament’, has overreached it, in successive centuries.

Devolution of government to regions, or home rule as it was once termed, has bedevilled UK politics for decades and, like plate tectonics, the stresses and strains of devolution cause explosive events such as the proposed secession of Scotland from the union by a referendum in 2014.

The Blair government did try to devolve through regional assemblies in England but, after an abortive attempt, they faded to nothing on the basis that the public was not convinced that more democracy via elected assemblies would resolve the anomaly of England’s lack of democracy. Since then the restarted English devolution process has concentrated on metro mayors and devolution ‘deals’.

Has austerity made the English public more enthusiastic about devolution?

What may have changed the situation is a rolling programme of austerity for English local government since 2010, and what is seen as excessive profit-taking in the privatised public industries, notably public transport, energy, and water, plus the abject failure of regulation to prohibit excessive profit taking. In short, potholes, sewage, TransPennine Express, and busless deserts, have contributed to what may be an end game towards privatised public services. The image of a ‘busted Britain’ and ‘nothing works’, is toxic and the public appears to want change.

The 30 proposals of the IFG report

The report contains 30 proposals which are all sound and may deliver an enduring structure if adopted by the government. The proposals suggest that the English local government should be restructured first. What this means is more unitary councils, combining most of the functions of both counties and districts. Medway and Wiltshire are two examples of unitary councils that already exist.

The report approves of metro mayors and wants both to extend their number and increase their powers.

The report recommends scrapping first past the post elections and substituting proportional election systems, as used in previous metro mayor elections without a problem. FTP tends to create political redoubts like the red or blue walls, and discourages participation by the public, because they feel that their vote will be wasted. In the past, we have tended to value ‘strong government’ at whatever level over cooperation, and this has led to the formation of ‘mini fiefdoms’, as Vernon Bogdanor, the constitutional historian, once called them.

The report also suggests that a sum be set aside to measure effectiveness and to learn lessons. Often we hear about ‘lessons being learned’ only after disaster strikes, and even then they are soon forgotten. There is a tendency for management to look inwards for answers to problems, so an organisation that evaluates best practices and reports of new ideas is welcome.

To read the report click here: institute for government.

In their book, Head North, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the newly re-elected mayors of the Manchester and Liverpool regions, cover much of the same ground as the IFG but also includes a Hillsborough law, that requires state organisations and those organisations that impinge on public safety to have a duty of candour, instead of hiding behind commercial confidentiality or legal obfuscation. There is no point in devolving a power if its misuse cannot be brought to book when there is a failure or wrongdoing.

Devolution for England: a regional roundup

The IFG report has a similar map showing a postcode lottery of services, almost unique in a modern state. Perhaps the best way to create some rationality is to deliver unitary councils everywhere. We cannot have counties like Kent and Devon with some unitary councils (Medway, Torbay and Plymouth) and the rest with the old 1974 two or three-decker system. If England at least contained a network of unitary councils there would be a uniform system of government that the public might understand. It may require a timetable to be imposed on areas whose parochialism or sectional interests outweigh any sense of delivering better public services to the public.

Central government’s role should be one of inspection and the setting of ground rules via a revived audit commission and the enshrinement of the Nolan Principles in law, with strong enforcement.

Whatever devolution scheme is adopted needs to percolate down to the lowest level, as everyone lives in a village, town or borough. The person in the street may be patriotic and may recognise their county or region, but often their strongest community feelings are for their immediate vicinity. If a local community is given some autonomy, a unitary or regional organisation will have a reliable partner, rather than a resentful opposition. This does not mean that localism should have a veto, but ought to be given rather more meaningful position than at present.

The distribution of functions would be :

Regional: transport, industrial and regional planning.

Unitary councils: waste, education, libraries, housing, parking, planning, public health.

Community: parks, gardens, community centres, community organisations, allotments.

The report is detailed on structures but we also need to address the outsourcing industry because there is little point in addressing devolution if decision-making is in fact carried out by SERCO, G4S, or Capita, with all their shareholder value management styles, and silo culture. An example of this phenomenon is the six weeks of bin collection chaos in which three mid-Kent Districts created a joint waste collection service, but found only a single bidding contractor, with results that are all too painful. Contracting out was meant to save money, but has become more of a shibboleth than an economic necessity.

The report does not mention Kent and, in my correspondence with the report’s authors, I was told that the county was too small to be considered for a regional reorganisation. That may be true, but Kent does have a similar population to Northern Ireland, and no one is saying that N. Ireland must be ruled by Westminster in the way Kent is administered. The antediluvian nature of Kent’s government structure does require change. This may result in local restructuring of local government into three or possibly four unitary councils of around half a million souls each, and a similar restructuring of health services which would be coterminous with those unitary councils.

Regionally Kent and Surrey have some affinity, but I think a modification of the old government of the South East to include Sussex might be a better fit. Still, I don’t think allowing Kent to soldier on as it is, is any sort of solution for the future.

To conclude, a good report with many sound proposals, but I fear they will all fall on the stony ground of self-interest and politics.

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