I’ve been watching the long, slow dance of English devolution for years, and every time a new plan appears I catch myself wondering the same thing: will this one finally stick? The latest version, pushed hard by Andy Burnham, arrives with more ambition than most. He wants mayors and local leaders to keep a genuine slice of the income tax raised in their own areas from 2028. On the surface it feels like the missing piece that previous deals never quite delivered. Yet the gap between a tidy announcement and real change on the ground remains enormous, and the road ahead looks steeper than many people admit.
Why England Still Feels So Centralised
England makes up roughly 85 percent of the UK population, yet almost every meaningful decision still funnels through Whitehall. Local councils can set a few charges and run day-to-day services, but the big levers—housing targets, major transport schemes, skills funding, even how long an ice-cream van is allowed to tinkle—sit with ministers and civil servants in London. Local and regional taxes currently account for less than 2 percent of GDP. Compare that with most other developed countries and the imbalance jumps out immediately.
It wasn’t always like this. In the nineteenth century the great northern and midland cities ran their own gas works, built their own libraries and universities, and took real pride in competing with one another. Post-war centralisation slowly stripped that autonomy away. The phrase “postcode lottery” entered everyday language as something to be feared rather than celebrated. Differences between places became evidence of failure instead of healthy local choice.
Across the political spectrum people have argued for decades that decentralising power would create a more responsive state and, crucially, faster growth. Regional leaders sit closer to the data. They can join up transport, housing, skills and employment in ways that a distant department never can. The logic feels sound. The delivery, however, has repeatedly fallen short.
What the Government Has Already Put in Place
Before the latest push, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act already created a new framework. It established elected strategic authorities, expanded mayoral powers and gave communities a stronger right of first refusal over local assets. It also strengthened the Local Audit Office so that council finances face tighter scrutiny. The underlying idea was to make devolution the default rather than a series of one-off deals negotiated with ministers.
That legislation mattered. It moved the conversation from “if” to “how.” Yet it still left most of the money flowing through central grants. Without fiscal muscle, local leaders remain petitioners rather than genuine decision-makers. That is the gap Burnham now claims he will close.
The New Fiscal Offer on the Table
The plan is straightforward in outline. From 2028, mayors—and potentially other local authorities—will receive a share of the income tax collected in their areas. That money will replace part of the existing central grant system. Details are scheduled for the autumn Budget and a fresh White Paper. The broader blueprint, sometimes called the New Model of Government, also promises greater control over transport, housing, innovation, local energy and cultural investment.
Think tanks estimate that around 2 percent of local income-tax receipts would be enough, on average, to replace the grants current mayors already receive. The absolute sums will not be huge at first. The symbolic shift, however, is significant. If a city creates more and better-paid jobs, it will keep a direct share of the resulting tax revenue. That creates a clear incentive to grow rather than simply lobby for larger handouts.
I’ve always believed that incentives matter more than intentions. Giving places a financial stake in their own success feels like the right direction. Whether the scale and the safeguards will be enough is another question entirely.
The Real Obstacles That Could Still Derail Progress
Even the cleanest fiscal transfer will struggle while council budgets remain dominated by what some insiders call the frightful four: adult social care, temporary accommodation, children’s services and school transport. These are legal duties. Councils must deliver them, yet the funding has never fully matched the demand. As a result every other priority—regeneration, skills programmes, early-years support—gets squeezed. Handing over a modest share of income tax does little if the new money simply disappears into existing statutory pressures.
A second risk is more cultural. There is little point devolving power if the centre still expects every local decision to mirror national priorities. Early signals—talk of nationwide bus-fare caps or preferential tax treatment for certain high-street businesses—suggest a top-down flavour that sits uneasily with genuine localism. Real devolution requires the freedom to experiment, including the freedom to try things that Whitehall might dislike.
Competition between regions is part of the point. Places that succeed should keep more of the upside. Places that lag should feel pressure to improve. That logic collides with a strong political instinct to equalise outcomes. Balancing the two will test every future government.
Capacity Gaps That Cannot Be Ignored
Local government has been hollowed out since the 1980s. Many authorities lost experienced staff, analytical capacity and institutional memory. Handing them major new powers overnight would be reckless. The early years of any serious devolution programme must therefore focus on rebuilding that capacity. Training, shared specialist teams, better data systems and clearer accountability frameworks all need investment before the full transfer of responsibility can work.
Another awkward reality: roughly half the population of England still lives outside mayoral combined authorities. Whitehall continues to hold the reins for those areas. Any coherent national approach therefore requires parallel work to strengthen ordinary councils and to create new structures where none exist. Ignoring that half of the country would simply create a new two-tier England.
The Trade-Offs That Will Define Success or Failure
Devolution is never a pure win. Every genuine transfer of power involves choices that cannot be wished away. Speed versus sustainability. Local autonomy versus national consistency. Freedom to innovate versus clear accountability. Neat administrative boundaries versus historical identity. Equality of outcomes versus incentives to grow.
Get those balances wrong and the whole project stalls. Move too fast and weak institutions collapse under the weight of new responsibilities. Move too slowly and the political momentum evaporates. Give places complete freedom and some will make decisions that create visible unfairness. Keep too many national strings attached and the local leaders become little more than delivery agents for central policy.
In my view the most interesting tension sits between incentives and equity. A pure growth model rewards success and risks widening regional gaps. A pure equalisation model removes the very incentive that is supposed to drive improvement. Finding a workable middle path will require more political honesty than we usually see.
What Genuine Fiscal Devolution Could Look Like in Practice
Imagine a city that successfully attracts high-value employers and lifts average wages. Under the proposed model it would retain a larger share of the extra income tax. That money could fund better transport links, skills programmes tailored to local employers, or housing that actually matches demand. Over time the virtuous circle becomes self-reinforcing. The opposite is also true: places that fail to grow would feel the squeeze more directly and face stronger pressure to change course.
The initial 2 percent figure is modest. It is best understood as a proof of concept rather than the final destination. If the first wave works, future governments could expand the share, add other tax bases, or experiment with local business rates retention on a larger scale. Each step would need careful design so that poorer areas are not left behind during the transition.
Accountability mechanisms matter just as much as the money. Voters need clear information about what their mayor or council actually controls. Without that clarity, blame simply shifts between levels of government and no one is held responsible when things go wrong.
Lessons From Earlier Experiments
Previous devolution deals produced mixed results. Some mayoral areas improved transport coordination and secured better investment packages. Others struggled with fragmented geographies, weak local partnerships or simply a lack of experienced staff. The common thread was that soft power and persuasion only take you so far. Hard fiscal power changes behaviour more reliably.
International comparisons offer useful warnings. Countries that rushed decentralisation without building local capacity often saw service quality drop or corruption risks rise. Those that moved gradually, paired money with clear performance frameworks, and protected a strong national safety net tended to fare better. England does not need to copy any single model, but it would be foolish to ignore the pattern.
Political Risks That Could Still Sink the Project
Devolution is easy to announce and hard to defend when the first local decision creates headlines the government dislikes. A mayor who cuts a popular service, or who prioritises one community over another, will quickly test central resolve. The temptation to claw power back will always be present.
There is also the risk of overselling. Presenting devolution as the single answer to stagnant growth, poor public services and regional inequality sets the policy up for inevitable disappointment. It is a necessary condition for better outcomes, not a sufficient one. Skills, infrastructure, planning rules and national economic strategy still matter enormously.
I’ve found that the most useful way to think about the current moment is as a long game rather than a single decisive reform. The 2028 tax-share start date gives time to build capacity and design the rules carefully. Whether that time is used wisely will decide if the plan bears real fruit or joins the list of half-finished experiments.
What Success Would Actually Look Like
Five years from now a successful version of this agenda would show several clear signs. Local leaders would talk more about growth strategies and less about grant negotiations. Businesses would notice faster decision-making on planning and skills. Residents would see visible differences between places and begin to reward or punish local politicians accordingly. Whitehall would have stepped back from micro-management and focused on genuine national priorities.
Failure would look familiar: continued reliance on central grants, persistent capacity gaps, and a steady stream of national interventions whenever a local decision proves unpopular. The formal structures might exist, yet the real power would remain where it has always been.
The difference between those two futures rests less on the elegance of the legislation and more on the political will to live with genuine local variation. That will is still untested.
Practical Steps That Could Improve the Odds
Several concrete moves would help. First, pair the tax-share transfer with a realistic multi-year settlement for the statutory pressures that currently dominate budgets. Second, invest seriously in local analytical and delivery capacity before the new powers arrive. Third, design transparent performance data so that voters can judge results. Fourth, create clear escalation routes for genuine national concerns without allowing constant interference. Fifth, accept that some places will move faster than others and resist the urge to equalise every outcome in real time.
- Protect a basic national floor for essential services while allowing local variation above that floor
- Build shared specialist teams that smaller authorities can draw on without losing local control
- Publish simple, comparable metrics on growth, employment and service outcomes
- Give mayors genuine multi-year funding certainty rather than annual negotiations
- Create a clear, limited list of reserved national powers and stick to it
None of these steps is glamorous. All of them are necessary if the rhetoric is to become reality.
The Longer View on English Governance
England remains an outlier among large democracies in the degree of central control it maintains. Most comparable countries have stronger regional tiers with meaningful tax powers. The current moment offers a rare chance to correct that imbalance. Whether the opportunity is seized or squandered will shape the country’s economic geography for a generation.
Burnham’s plan is not radical by international standards. It is cautious, phased and still incomplete. Yet it is more serious than many previous attempts. The combination of a legal framework already in place, a fiscal commitment with a clear start date, and a political narrative that links local power to national growth gives it a better chance than most.
Still, the hardest work lies ahead. Capacity must be rebuilt. Trade-offs must be managed honestly. Central government must learn to live with outcomes it does not fully control. Local leaders must prove they can handle real responsibility. None of that is automatic.
Perhaps the most useful test is simple. In ten years’ time, will people in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds or any other city feel that decisions about their transport, skills and housing are made closer to home and with a clearer link to local success? If the answer is yes, the plan will have borne fruit. If the answer is still no, then the long hard road will simply have continued.
For now the direction of travel is clearer than it has been for decades. Whether the destination is reached depends on choices that have not yet been made. That uncertainty is both the risk and the opportunity. England has talked about devolution for a long time. The next few years will show whether it is finally prepared to practise it.
