Why Labour’s Devolution Plan Could Mean Less Power to the People

Last December, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced the English Devolution White Paper. It encapsulated Labour’s approach to devolution. Vast swathes of the country, particularly regions outside major urban areas, will see a fundamental change in how they are governed.
District councils will be done away with, with the government preferring the unitary authority model that combines existing two-tier arrangements of county and district councils. Councils are also expected to merge with neighbouring regions to form ‘combined authorities’ (CAs) led by an elected mayor.
For decades, English governance has been desperate for bold reform that could reinvigorate sluggish economic growth and low civic participation in local democratic processes. As one of the most centralised developed nations, power never belonged to the people.
However, questions remain over whether Labour’s policy is the answer to England’s problems. This article sets out key concerns that must be resolved in order to deliver the transformative change that can unleash the potential of left behind towns and cities.
Firstly, there is a risk that subsuming district councils within a broader unitary authority will move power further away from local people rather than empowering them. Such a move appears antithetical to the spirit of devolution.
The government’s stated rationale is that two tier authorities guarantee duplication of services, wasting taxpayer money in the process. They can also be opaque and confusing for citizens, with a set of seemingly incoherent powers allocated to each tier.
Forcing all local areas to become unitary authorities would also address the patchwork distribution of authorities that currently constitute English local government. This would in turn make councils more accessible to the electorate, leading to a greater understanding of how their area is governed and, hopefully, thereby improving civic engagement.
Nevertheless, simply abolishing a level of government will have negative implications for local areas unless safeguards are put in place. District councils provide a local form of representation and knowledge that can be beneficial, especially in diverse counties in rural shires.
For example, district councils have powers over housing and planning. Given the current tensions between some local residents and central government house building targets, allowing a far flung council to make decisions over planning could exacerbate such hostility.
There is also a risk that without a political body dedicated to serving specific districts, these areas could be overlooked when it comes to funding decisions or have policies implemented against the will of the local population.
To be a success, any move towards unitary authorities needs to be accompanied with assurances that these new bodies will continue to listen and respond to hyperlocal issues. Only a genuine commitment to remain connected to areas previously governed by district councils will assuage concerns over the reforms.
Secondly, there are concerns over the devolution criteria laid down by the government. Labour has set out that unitary authorities should have a population of at least 500,000 with CAs having roughly 1.5 million.
Traditionally CAs have been centred around urban areas, such as Greater Manchester or the West Midlands, following what policy wonks define as functional economic areas. These are regions that have a coherent economic geography and thus benefit from the unified strategic decision making afforded by a mayor.
This model works because these urban areas are so densely populated that although they can contain diverse places, for example the West Midlands Combined Authority includes both Birmingham and Coventry, they cover a small enough area to ensure the regional identity and economic interconnectivity required for the system to function.
However, rural shires have a far smaller population and a less obvious functional economic area. This means new CAs will have to encompass several counties to reach the 1.5 million resident requirement. For example, there has been talk of a ‘Heart of Wessex’ plan that would combine Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset as well as a possible ‘Three Counties’ CA between Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire.
These areas are so geographically large with a non-existent regional identity that it is hard to understand the rationale for imposing a Combined Authority. Why would someone in Bourton-on-the-Water (East Gloucestershire) care about the transport network in Bromsgrove (North Worcestershire) which has far more to do with the West Midlands than the Cotswolds.
The government should relax its population thresholds to allow for more organic CAs to emerge. Trying to govern an area with no coherent economic or social identity will make the mayor's role incredibly difficult, and could be met with accusations that rule from Westminster has simply been replaced by rule from another, equally far flung, town or city.
The point of devolution is to restore power to the people, granting local communities the policymaking powers to kickstart economic growth and reacquaint the electorate with the democratic process.
Labour’s plans are a step in the right direction, but to truly unlock England’s potential and empower communities to make decisions that work for them, the government needs to work with local areas, not dictate policy to them.
Image: Flickr/UK Government
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