Devolution Revolution: Introducing the 'Ideas Bank'

A live collection of practical ideas to push power out of Whitehall and into places — from governance reform to transport and regeneration.

England doesn’t have a shortage of ideas for devolution, but it does have a shortage of anywhere to put them.

So this column is an attempt to fix that.

This is the second instalment in my Devolution Revolution series — and I’m treating it as a living Ideas Bank. A place to collect, test and revisit proposals for further devolution, both contemporary and historic.

Together, we’ve already crowdsourced dozens of recommendations. If you’ve made the case for further devolution — in a report, a blog, or just a half-formed idea — send it my way.

Some of what follows will be familiar. Some you may feel agnostic about. And some, I hope, will be new.

The threshold for inclusion is simple: is it credible? If so, it goes in the bank. I’ll come back to many of these in more depth in future columns.

Before we get into the list, a confession. I haven’t stepped back and asked the big strategic questions I normally would. What is devolution actually for? What is the intended end state? And where should power ultimately sit — in mature strategic authorities, or the less powerful “Foundation” authorities that are emerging?

Those questions matter, but I’m parking them for now. I am confident friends at Re:State will be answering some of those in their new Devo Next Initiative.

This series is different. It is deliberately practical. Its purpose is to help navigate the long — and growing — list of recommendations already out there. Collating them in one place feels like a helpful starting point.

With that, let’s get on with it.

GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

1. Give strategic authorities responsibility for setting local authority boundaries. Strategic authorities are not mature enough for that yet. In the medium- or long-term the principle is sound, but given England’s strategic authorities are on average too small, it does pose practical difficulties. The UK Government should also still retain responsibility for setting the ‘rules of the game’ and (as I argue in a forthcoming blog for The Productivity Institute in relation to regional and pan-regional structures) simply giving places free reign over shaping geographies creates new problems.
   

2. Devolve responsibility for public service boundaries to strategic authorities. This is broader than the previous recommendation, encompassing multiple public services, not just local authorities. Why, so the argument goes, is the Home Office with its responsibility for police and fire responsible for setting those boundaries, when the Department for Health and Social Care is not responsible for adult social care, for example?
   

3. Make data-sharing the default. The proposal is that the Government should create a more permissive environment for data-sharing between local public service providers, with a presumption in favour of sharing where the Public Interest Test is met. I like the idea and it’s overdue. I don’t think this necessarily requires further devolution: in practice, much of this is already possible. Local authorities do strike data-sharing agreements. But it’s harder than it needs to be. The barriers are as much cultural as they are legal — with genuine technical and ethical challenges — and I think the Mayoral Data Council and vehicles such as the Office for Public Service Innovation hosted by Liverpool City Region have a role in unblocking blockages. What should action look like, then? Clearer statutory guidance, legislation, both?
   

REGENERATION

4. Free up council-owned school land. Specifically, the Government should remove the requirement for Secretary of State consent before council-owned school land can be used for non-educational purposes. This is one I’ve suggested. The rule made sense when it was introduced in the 1990s. It makes less sense now, because at least in pockets of London we are witnessing falling school rolls, rising housing unaffordability, land scarcity and growing numbers of households in temporary accommodation. There are obvious sensitivities about land adjacent to active school sites, but surplus land could, in some cases, be used more creatively such as for meanwhile accommodation for vulnerable families?
   

5. Devolve public sector land and assets. This has long animated policy-makers. Specifically, the proposal is to devolve assets held by the courts, the NHS, transport bodies and others to local or strategic authorities. One obstacle is often that those public sector institutions are required to sell at market value to comply with financial rules, so that may be worthwhile examining.
   

   1. A softer version: a Right to Request. A more incremental approach would give strategic authorities a formal right to request public assets — with departments required to respond. The same principle has already been established with the existing Right to Request, though that is limited to new powers.

GREEN AND WASTE

6. Devolve waste processing. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, waste is devolved — and recycling performance and other indicators are generally higher than in England. But they have the benefit of being much smaller. They also perpetuate their own forms of centralisation. For example, Welsh ministers are responsible for setting local recycling targets. England, by contrast, is fragmented. London and the GMCA are the only strategic authorities with responsibilities for waste. London is in the unique position, devolving GLA powers to four statutory joint waste authorities – East London, North London, West London and Western Riverside, which between them are responsible for 21 boroughs – along with 12 other boroughs which are independent waste authorities in their own right. What a mess!

7. Regulate ferries like buses. Strategic authorities can regulate buses; should they also regulate ferries? This is particularly relevant in places like the Isle of Wight, but even in London there’s an inconsistency. The GLA regulates road emissions through the Ultra Low Emission Zone, but has no equivalent control over emissions from river services like Uber Boat.

TRANSPORT

8. Remove the requirement for the SoS to sign-off cattle grids. A trivial matter, but something that is seen as totemic of centralisation. Angela Rayner did promise to remove the requirement when in MHCLG, but it did not make it into the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. In practice, the majority of applications to install cattle grids are decided by local highway authorities.
   

9. Devolve tolls to strategic authorities. England and Wales still have toll roads and bridges. Scotland abolished its tolls in 2008. The key question is who decides when tolls change, I think. It’s not entirely clear what was promised in the White Paper, which only stated that “changes to tolls on certain tolled undertakings will be devolved to Mayors”, but has not materialised either.
   

10. Devolve Transport and Works Act orders (TWAOs). TWAOs grant planning permission for major transport schemes – trams, light rail and underground. They were introduced in 1992 to streamline a system that previously required Acts of Parliament for individual projects. The Planning and Infrastructure Act (2025) has streamlined things further. Would devolving TWAOs make a meaningful difference? I’m less convinced than I once was. Many projects cross multiple geographies and devolution risks fragmentation as much as it promises speed.
    

    1. But, but, but: the current system isn’t working either. Take the Birmingham Eastside Extension. It’s a one-mile tram extension intended to connect to HS2. The TWAO was submitted in October 2016 but not approved until January 2020 That’s four years for a mile of track.
       

That’s the first ten ideas from the Ideas Bank, folks. Some are obvious, others contentious and others still half-formed. I’ll introduce ten more next week.

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