Devolution alone cannot renew Britain

Andy Burnham’s new cabinet has launched a plan to rewire British governance. Under his leadership, the government released the Rewiring the State policy paper, which proposes a significant shift of power, resources and responsibility to strategic authorities and elected mayors. The paper says local institutions will be asked to deliver economic growth, skills training, housing and public service reform. The stated ambition is to devolve decision‑making, strengthen local leadership and create conditions for growth in every region and neighbourhood.

While the proposal is bold, the recognition that Britain needs such change is not new. For decades, governments of all parties have acknowledged that the UK is one of the most centralised democracies in the developed world. The case for devolving authority has been clear, yet successive administrations have failed to deliver meaningful transfers of power.

Evidence shows that local leaders often understand community needs better than distant Whitehall officials. They can coordinate services, spot local opportunities and threats, reflect regional business interests and respond faster to shifting conditions. These advantages have been documented in numerous studies of urban and rural governance.

However, the editorial warns that institutional reform alone will not drive democratic renewal. Creating new authorities, electing new mayors, redrawing organisational charts and moving budgets between tiers of government will not, by itself, rebuild trust in politics or produce the resilient local communities that Labour hopes to achieve.

The core challenge lies not only in where power sits but also in how that power is exercised. Too often, British governments have treated communities as audiences to be consulted rather than partners in shaping change. Public participation has frequently been reduced to surveys, consultations and carefully managed engagement exercises that occur after key decisions have already been made.

The result is a sense among residents that their time and energy are not valued, while officials become defensive and policies struggle to take root where they are intended to improve. This pattern undermines the legitimacy of any devolution settlement, no matter how well designed on paper.

Although the government’s commitment to “new and modern forms of public participation” is welcome, it must be bold to break this cycle. Citizens’ assemblies, deliberative forums and other democratic innovations are regularly proposed as ways to reconnect politics with the public. These tools have value, but participation is not a single method; it represents a different way of governing.

In practice, the most transformative forms of participation are often the least visible from Westminster. Community‑led research, participatory design, neighbourhood organising and investment in community leadership do more than generate better ideas. They build relationships between institutions and residents, strengthen local confidence and create the social foundations that make difficult reforms possible.

Another set of questions concerns whether local institutions are ready for the responsibilities they are about to inherit. Are they being encouraged and supported to collaborate across sectors? Are they being judged on short‑term delivery metrics rather than long‑term relationship building? Do they possess the budget, culture and confidence to involve communities before policies are fixed, rather than after they are announced?

These questions may sound abstract, but they are profoundly practical. The success of devolution will depend less on constitutional design than on whether mayors, councils, civil servants and community organisations learn to work differently together. Thriving places are found most often where institutions have learned to share power, where officials are willing to experiment and where local knowledge is treated as a source of expertise rather than mere anecdote.

The sociologist and politician Michael Young – who founded The Young Foundation, the Open University, Which? and many other organisations – understood that social innovation emerges when people closest to problems are supported to organise and act. He believed that the state functions better when it recognises the capabilities that already exist within communities. That belief feels incredibly relevant today.

Britain is entering a period of transition: demographic change, technological disruption, climate crisis and widening regional inequalities are reshaping the country simultaneously. No government, however ambitious, can navigate these challenges without the participation of institutions capable of learning, adapting and collaborating across boundaries. This requires a different political imagination.

Participation should not be treated as a democratic nicety or a communications exercise. It is a form of civic infrastructure. It is the mechanism through which governments discover what is happening in real places, build legitimacy for difficult decisions and create the local ownership that drives meaningful, relevant and lasting change.