The Illusion of Local Power
Westminster is addicted to control. For years, the political establishment has teased the public with the promise of devolution, suggesting that moving power away from London would miraculously fix regional inequality. The current consensus among policy wonks is simple: give England’s metro mayors sweeping new powers and the economy will thrive.
It is a comforting narrative. It is also entirely wrong. Read more on a connected topic: this related article.
Giving mayors more responsibility without fixing the structural rot of British public finance is not devolution. It is blame-shifting. By handing local leaders the keys to public services while keeping a tight grip on the purse strings, the central government is essentially outsourcing austerity.
When a metro mayor receives control over local transport or housing budgets, they are not receiving autonomy. They are receiving a pre-packaged deficit. The current framework ensures that mayors spend more time begging the Treasury for short-term pots of cash than implementing long-term strategies. True power does not come from managing a budget dictated by a civil servant in Whitehall. True power comes from the ability to raise, retain, and spend tax revenue based on local needs. Until England confronts this reality, devolution will remain an elaborate exercise in public relations. Further analysis by NPR highlights similar perspectives on this issue.
The Treasury Noose around Local Growth
To understand why the current mayoral system is toothless, one must examine how local government is funded in England. Unlike mayors in New York, Tokyo, or Berlin, who command massive independent tax bases, English metro mayors rely overwhelmingly on central government grants.
The Bidding War Culture
The mechanism of control is the competitive bidding process. Instead of receiving a predictable, block-grant funding stream based on population and economic need, local authorities must compete against each other for specific funds.
Whitehall sets the criteria, defines the goals, and judges the winners. This creates a bizarre spectacle where Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and the West of Yorkshire spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in consultancy fees just to draft bids for tiny pots of infrastructure money.
- Wasted Resources: Millions of pounds that could go toward fixing potholes or funding social care are spent on writing speculative grant applications.
- Short-Term Thinking: Central government grants usually have strict expiration dates, forcing mayors to prioritize quick, superficial projects over meaningful infrastructure overhauls.
- Micro-Management: Civil servants in London regularly veto minor transport adjustments in northern cities because the plans do not align with national guidelines.
This system guarantees that mayors remain supplicants. They are forced to dance to the tune of the Treasury, adopting whatever buzzwords are fashionable in Whitehall this week to secure funding for their regions.
The Council Tax Trap
Mayors do have the power to place a precept on local council tax bills, but this is a regressive tool. Council tax is based on property valuations from 1991. Relying on it to fund modern regional infrastructure is absurd.
If a mayor in a economically disadvantaged region raises the precept to fund a new tram line, they disproportionately hit low-income households. Meanwhile, wealthy areas generate massive revenues from minor tax adjustments. The system widens the regional divide rather than narrowing it.
Why More Powers Will Not Fix a Broken System
The prevailing argument from devolution advocates is that mayors just need more powers. They want control over skills training, post-16 education, employment support, and strategic planning.
But adding more responsibilities to a structurally flawed system simply compounds the failure. Consider a hypothetical scenario where a metro mayor is given complete control over the regional health service budget. On paper, this looks like a victory for local democracy. In practice, without the power to reform national contract structures or independently raise revenue for capital investment, that mayor is now directly responsible for NHS waiting lists. When the system breaks down due to national staff shortages, the central government can wash its hands of the issue and point the finger at the local leader.
The Skills Misalignment
The devolution of adult education budgets is often cited as a success story. Yet, mayors remain constrained by national rigidities. A regional leader might see a massive shortage of green-energy technicians in their area, but if national apprenticeship frameworks do not accommodate the necessary training modules, the mayor cannot easily pivot.
The central state retains veto power over the curriculum, qualifications, and broader employment regulations. The mayor is merely an administrator of a national program, not the architect of a local economy.
The Transport Myth
The regulation of local bus services through franchising is another heavily praised power. While it allows mayors to set fares and routes, it does not solve the underlying issue: road congestion and lack of capital for heavy rail investment.
A mayor can paint the buses the same color and cap the fare at two pounds, but they cannot build a new rail line without billions of pounds from Whitehall. When the central government cancels major infrastructure projects, local transport strategies are shattered, regardless of how many theoretical powers the mayor holds.
The Governance Deficit and Accountability Black Hole
As metro mayors accumulate more administrative duties, a democratic vacuum is opening up across England. Who actually holds these individuals accountable?
In the Westminster system, parliament provides scrutiny. In local government, a full council of elected members debates policy. Metro mayors, however, operate in a strange gray zone. They are scrutinized by combined authority scrutiny committees, which are made up of local councillors who already have full-time responsibilities in their own boroughs. These committees rarely have the resources, the time, or the political will to properly challenge an executive mayor.
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| THE DEVOLUTION DECEPTION |
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| What Mayors are Promised | The Actual Reality |
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| Strategic economic leadership | Managing central government |
| | grant applications |
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| Control over local transport | Capped fares with no funding |
| | for major infrastructure |
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| Tailored skills training | Administering rigid national |
| | qualification frameworks |
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Furthermore, voter turnout for mayoral elections remains stubbornly low. When fewer than one-third of eligible voters turn out to elect a leader who wields billions of pounds in public spending, the mandate is weak. This lack of engagement creates a dangerous dynamic where special interest groups and corporate developers wield disproportionate influence over regional strategies, while ordinary citizens remain disconnected from the decision-making process.
The Radical Reform Nobody Wants to Talk About
If the current model of devolution is a cosmetic fix, what does real decentralization look like? It requires a fundamental reordering of the British constitution and a total dismantling of the Treasury’s financial monopoly.
First, England must move to a system of fiscal devolution. Mayors should have the power to retain a significant percentage of the income tax and business rates generated within their regions. This would instantly align local economic growth with mayoral budgets. If a mayor successfully attracts new industries to their area, their budget increases automatically. They would no longer need to travel to London to beg for funds.
Second, the competitive bidding process must be abolished. Funding should be allocated through long-term, statutory block grants based on clear formulas that account for regional deprivation and infrastructure deficits. This would allow combined authorities to plan ten, fifteen, or twenty years into the future, providing the stability that private investors actually look for.
Finally, the geographical boundaries of combined authorities must make sense. The current map of English devolution is a messy patchwork of political compromises. Some areas have mayors, some have county deals, and some have nothing at all. This fragmentation distorts national planning and creates a multi-speed economy where un-devolved areas are left completely defenseless against economic decline.
Real devolution is risky. It means accepting that different regions will make different choices, and that some of those choices will fail. It means allowing local leaders to set tax rates that might dissatisfy central government ministers. But the alternative is the continuation of the current charade: a system that talks of empowerment while practicing absolute central control, leaving English regions stuck in a cycle of managed decline.
