Burnham's English devolution push faces catastrophic dangers, warns Phillip Inman

Devolution in England is going to be difficult and drawn-out, and carries enormous dangers that Andy Burnham overlooks at his own risk.

The prime minister’s devolution agenda will be messy because Whitehall’s deep-rooted reluctance to hand over money and power will result in fragmented agreements, beginning with a deal for Cornwall that will be missing the much-touted momentum of a newly created mayor.

And there is every chance it will be slow, now that the reappointed housing secretary Angela Rayner’s restructuring of local government, creating hundreds of unitary authorities to replace counties and districts, is bogged down in judicial reviews. Some councils have accumulated enormous debts in the past decade and it is unclear how those debts will be distributed among the new bodies.

There are accusations that proposals to split some existing county councils into three, four or even five unitary authorities are politically driven and that Labour has been swayed by the prospect of keeping a foothold in local government through gerrymandering.

Last week, Hertfordshire county council and Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council became the most recent local authorities to write to Rayner, asking for clarification on how the government arrived at its decision in their areas. A week earlier, Lincolnshire county council did the same. Further south, Essex county, which is set to be split into five unitary authorities, discovered that the recommendation from Whitehall officials for only three new authorities was overridden by Rayner.

Presumably, all this infighting will be settled by Christmas and England will be prepared for an entirely new map of local authorities by next May when new elections will take place.

Surely these councils and combined authorities, many of which are also in their infancy, will struggle to develop into public institutions with energy, drive, knowledge and experience, capable of making sound decisions in time for the next election in 2029.

When devolution is the prime minister’s central idea, one that will invigorate Britain’s spirit of enterprise, how it operates will be vital. He cannot afford Reform UK and the Tories gloating about another broken promise, or about how it demonstrates the British state is clogged with officials waiting for their generous pensions, and in need of a Trumpian deep clean.

Rayner’s plan is grounded in a conviction that local government has failed to operate properly and that structural reform is the solution, saving far more over the longer term than the estimated £2bn initial cost.

It is a conviction with no foundation in academic research. It would be a relief to all those involved in local government and devolution to know that somewhere in the world there was evidence demonstrating how this kind of structural change improves services, saves money and, as Burnham would put it, supercharges economic growth.

Unfortunately there is no such evidence. It is, to use a well-worn cliché, simply rearranging deckchairs. And it is not only because the same people will be occupying the same roles in new offices (and yes, there will need to be five head offices instead of one in Essex).

As the Institute for Government states: “Structural reforms can be necessary, and useful. But there is nothing inherently valuable about them.”

What improves services are reforms to the way public officials operate, and that means tough negotiations with trade unions. There needs to be a degree of accountability that is absent in significant parts of the public sector. And it will be essential to alter how public organisations interact with each other, how they collaborate, breaking down old silos and protective practices. It involves giving more information to local people and involving them in decision making going forward.

Geoff Mulgan, a University College London professor and the former head of the Nesta thinktank, says devolution must address basic questions people should know, such as how private and public services are delivered and who determines the outcome, from broadband to banking.

“Otherwise it will remain entirely legitimate for populist politicians to say that people have lost control and to claim that they are the answer,” he says.

In most countries where devolution works well, the establishment of local structures was organic, not imposed. Germany grew out of mini-kingdoms. The US began as a collection of states. The Länder in Germany, and US states, agreed to a federal government while retaining considerable power for themselves.

The UK is closer to France. It has always been centralised, and gained in many ways from that and lost out in others. So we should not underestimate how difficult it will be to impose a new political structure on England that devolves money and power to brand new councils and mayors, or in the case of Cornwall, a cabinet committee.

The public will justifiably be sceptical when so many councils under the current system have fallen for the notion that they can lift themselves up if only they borrow substantial sums of money and “invest it” in new ventures. A new high street with hotels and leisure facilities was Woking borough council’s dream until it collapsed, £2bn in debt.

To say there are enormous dangers in the world of finance when local council leaders are let loose, armed with a mission to generate growth, is to understate the situation. There are catastrophic dangers waiting.