Centralised by Design: Anglocentric Constitutionalism, Accountability and the Failure of English Devolution

Keir Starmer has expressed a desire to reset UK-wide relations and commit to English devolution, with the King's Speech promising an English devolution bill and the devolution of skills and buses. But past attempts to devolve power and resources within England have very largely failed.

This article focusses on a largely neglected issue: the centralising accountability relationships that tie English local spending decisions both directly—and through UK government departments—to HM Treasury, using arguments set out elsewhere. Only by reforming the assumptions, culture and operational mechanisms of the UK state can devolution be more than ‘devolution in name only.’

Proposals for English devolution

In 2023, Starmer described ‘the Westminster model as part of the problem’, calling for a ‘whole new way of working’ in which communities have the ‘chance to control their economic destiny’. Mission-driven government will focus on ‘long-term’ and ‘complex’ problems which have ‘common causes.’ The accompanying legislative programme was largely grouped under five missions on economic growth, net zero, health, security and opportunity. However, the relationship between UK missions, devolution and the exercise of territorial powers has not yet been articulated.

Gordon Brown's influence is evident in the emphasis on strategic regional and subregional economic development and in the creation of a Council of the Nations and Regions, bringing together devolved administrations with England's elected mayors.

Save for limited areas such as adult skills, the mayoral role has largely been performative. Even the high-profile franchising of bus services in Greater Manchester used powers conceded by central government, not exercised by right. The new ‘single pot’ funding under ‘trailblazer devolution deals’ promised by the previous government was to be held tightly accountable to central government. Repeated efforts at devolution have done little to reverse forty years of centralisation.

Labour's programme implies the construction of a UK state that is decentralised in the exercise of power but with improved vertical coordination between different levels of power: UK government, national governments and local and regional governments. Labour will need to understand the UK government is organised to maintain this order, and then imagine how the state can function without it.

The centralisation of England

England's centralisation has evolved through four dimensions. First, following Brittan and Thatcher, the central state has tightened its grip on public spending, seeking both to control its levels and how money is spent. Second, the autonomy of local government to raise local revenues has been weakened through central controls on council tax and on leveraging the use of assets. Third, large areas of public service provision that were once the responsibility of the local state have been removed from local democratic control or influence. The merit of increasing transfer of democratic power from local to central in this way has never been examined. Fourth is the reduction of local democracy and the concentration of local power in fewer hands. The next wave of reform is now grouping local authorities into mayoral combined authorities.

The Westminster model and Anglocentric constitutionalism

Such hollowing out of local democracy and concentration of power could only have taken place in a culture where political accountability is held to lie only at the centre.

While other nations are said to have adopted the Westminster model, none have created a system of unchallenged parliamentary sovereignty outside any written constitution or constitutional courts. When the UK Parliament created devolved democratic institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it did not—in principle at least—cede ultimate sovereignty.

Anglocentric constitutionalism deemed no consideration was needed to the governance of England either at national or local level. England's governance is defined by a fragmentation of government departments which reinforces the departmental siloes and the inability of the centre to deliver joined-up government. The ‘machinery of government’ is an uncoordinated mishmash with different national responsibilities.

UK governments of all political shades have reduced the fiscal autonomy of local government without ever considering whether this breached the fundamental rights of local government and local people to exercise local decisions. The policy desirability of removing services from local democratic control was debated, but not the right of the UK state to impose it.

A political culture whereby ministers are responsible for English domestic policy and are held accountable by the media, as well as Parliament, for even the most local of service failures, provides a powerful incentive to ministers to reduce the scope of local government and increase their own power in the often-vain hope of raising quality.

Anglocentric constitutionalism and the dominance of the Treasury

The fragmented nature of England under the UK government has allowed HM Treasury to assume a uniquely powerful position. Its power has no formal constitutional underpinning, but is a direct consequence of the ideology surrounding the Westminster model. The Treasury has pursued the aim of controlling public spending relentlessly. According to its critics, it does this irrespective of whether its tight controls lead to poor value for money—for example, by fragmenting spending across different government departments. The Treasury also fostered the financialisation of the UK.

A crucial obstacle to English devolution remains the relationship between HM Treasury policy and departmental spending. The degree to which individual secretaries of state can shift funds within ‘their’ budget is strictly limited and those who attempt to do so will be warned by their officials that ‘the Treasury won't like it’.

The rapid churn of departmental ministers in frequent government reshuffles limits their ability to grip a departmental agenda. This leaves the AO system and official relationships with the Treasury as the most consistent set of relationships across Whitehall. Overall, England's current governance is one in which ministers exercise less power than either they would like and which the Westminster model might suggest they should enjoy.

Anglocentric constitutionalism and English devolution

The Westminster model prevents devolution. This leaves England as an international outlier, lacking local power and autonomy in subnational government. Despite the renewed interest in devolution, much of the focus on the failures of the central state has been on Whitehall and/or Civil Service reform. Freedman argues that this is one of the core elements of a ‘failed state’.

The radical restructuring of the state implied by Labour's commitment to devolution and mission-led government is more than a one-term parliamentary challenge to the current distribution of power: it is a profound challenge to deeply rooted cultural assumptions about how the UK state should operate.

What needs to change to implement English devolution?

A new model of devolution is needed that enables both local and combined authorities to exercise control over a significant degree of public expenditure within their area, to determine their own priorities and set the outcomes for which they will be held accountable.

The immediate aim should be to create rights based on the principles of subsidiarity and improve coordination between the different levels at which power is exercised. Successful devolution will require two key reforms, both of which could be enacted in the English Devolution Bill: control over local expenditure including new local AOs and the establishment of strong local institutions such as local PACs; and ‘Constitutional autonomy’ should establish the rights of local authorities to exercise defined powers.

It is not yet clear how radical Labour will be. Emphasis on mayors and the centre's right to determine local competence reflects some continuity with the Gove regime. The extension of ‘trailblazer’ devolution deals to more areas does not yet indicate any reforms to the fundamentally upwards nature of their accountability. ‘Mission boards’ have been established, but how far will they reach beyond traditional Cabinet subcommittees? English devolution is a manifesto commitment from the government, but it cannot be delivered through reliance on current or past policies.