Is the desire for devolution shifting?

LGA Conference is an occasion for a great many things. For some, it’s almost a festival of virtue and vice (or, at least, this is what my mentor led me to believe when I first rocked up in 2018). But most importantly, in bringing together councillors across party divides, alongside a strong showing of senior officers, it provides a setting for discussing strategies and the sector’s future that goes beyond what the Party conferences can offer.

Amidst the networking and the panels, many councillors and chief executives have devolution on their minds. It’s been a common theme for a few years now, but this year marks a new Government and, for some councils, a more nuanced position as a result.
Enthusiasm for devolution has always been uneven across the country. The appeal and promise of Combined Authorities and Mayoralties was always fairly obvious for the major city regions, but the uneven application of powers renders the exercise confusing to the outside observer (and many inside observers).

Outside the old metropolitan counties, the desire for Mayors was rather more muted. In Berkshire, where I was involved as Leader of Reading Borough Council with the establishment of a county-wide Prosperity Board formed by six unitary authorities as a precursor to seeking a devolution deal, there was always a background concern that a Mayor may, in time, lead to reorganisation of the existing councils and/or a diminishing of their powers. And, of course, there was always the worry that ‘the wrong Party’ might win the Mayoralty (a fear shared by red, blue and yellow teams). These concerns were typical in many other areas of the country too.

What has changed? Superficially, very little – Labour in Government appears equally committed to the devolution agenda as the Conservatives were. Yet that is the pivotal thing; the promise/threat (delete as appropriate) of devolution has not gone away. Accordingly, the fear of being left behind has grown. If a council drags its feet, will it find itself forcibly incorporated into a Combined Authority that doesn’t serve its own economic or political interests? This was a perceptible theme in the conversations I had with many Leaders. At the same time, the establishment of new Mayoralties in the East Midlands, the North East, and in York and North Yorkshire has taken the concept beyond the major metropolitan areas. Similarly, the Prime Minster’s Council of the Nations and Regions has emphasised that devolved government, rather than local councils, is the level at which Labour ideally wishes to engage on its growth agenda.

The other prospect exciting Leaders is that a devolution deal could be combined with some reorganisation of two-tier areas towards unitary authorities. For many Labour districts ‘stuck’ in the middle of Conservative and Lib Dem counties, unitary status has been a long-held, and long-frustrated, ambition (think, for example, of Oxford or Norwich). The experience of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority shows how difficult it can be to make devolution work effectively in a two-tier area. In the East Midlands, there’s resentment from districts at being only ‘non-constituent’ members of the Combined Authority.

Where does this leave us in practical terms? The most interesting conversations I had involved a group of southern authorities gingerly setting about crafting a geographically large, and politically diverse, area for an expression of interest in a devolution deal… including the acknowledgment that a Mayor would be a likely demand from the Government. In order to get this prospective deal off the ground, some reorganisation of districts would likely be necessary.

It’s an ambitious idea and that it is even being discussed demonstrates a level of enthusiasm – and some impressive local leadership – that I could scarcely have imagined coming along just a year ago. If it comes together, I suspect it will set the tone for a wave of similar deals across the southern. It’s always hard being the first to do something in local government, but it’s much worse being the last to do it.