The forthcoming UK Decentralization White Paper will be an important milestone for economic growth and public service reform. The Government is right to view devolution within England as a priority, and the political debate around devolution has increased accordingly.
The central question that the White Paper must answer is the geography of devolution in the UK. The geography of local government is a controversial topic and the government’s pragmatic approach to seeking “simpler structures that make sense for local areas” is prudent.
The Center for Cities believes that the UK’s economic geography approach to devolution is the most practical.
Economic geography approaches require difficult decisions. However, alternative ‘easy’ approaches that avoid hard geographical decisions risk further complicating local government with little benefit from reform.
The UK’s White Paper on Decentralization should aim for a map based on the economic geography shown below. It proposes a simple integrated system consisting of large county units with municipal authority for large cities and composite authority for states. Almost half of the 48 metropolitan mayors and counties proposed either have similar powers or are ‘obvious’ reforms for devolution (e.g. Leicester and Leicestershire).
Figure 1: Map for UK local authorities proposed by the Center for Cities
Source: Urban Center (2024)
