“Not respectful enough of local government, not respectful enough of places and pride in places, and local identity”. The verdict of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, on Holyrood’s attitude towards cities and regions will be tough for some to hear, and will no doubt be rejected by many.
It is, however, correct. Devolution, now a quarter of a century old, stopped at Edinburgh. Worse still, centralisation has largely been the order of the day since, with the power of the cities and regions gradually hollowed out. Devolution from Westminster to Edinburgh, and reverse-devolution from the rest of Scotland to Edinburgh.
The implications of this, over the life of devolution, have been subtle but clearly evident. We may not regard local authorities as being particularly well run, and there is much merit in that in some cases, but nonetheless it must be acknowledged that there is a direct correlation between increasing centralisation to Edinburgh and decreasing council performance on the basic requirements such as roads and pavements, schools and social care.
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- Anas Sarwar needs to be Mr Scotland
- The NHS could be Swinney’s Achilles heel
- Greater Manchester mayor Burnham and a future Glasgow vision
- The Future of Glasgow – Find all articles in the series here
This is not inevitable. Indeed, not only is it not inevitable, but the future of Scotland’s regions and cities may prove to be one of only a few genuine dividing lines between First Minister John Swinney and his principal opponent Anas Sarwar.
The story behind Scotland’s reverse-devolution is multi-layered. It is, in all likelihood, unintended, political and constitutional all at the same time.
Unintended because it is not at all clear that Scotland’s list of First Ministers, all the way from Donald Dewar to Mr Swinney, made an ideological decision to centralise, or made a policy virtue of that. Political and pragmatic, because in many cases (the creation of Police Scotland springs to mind) the centralisation was more likely to be driven by a genuine feeling that the status quo was failing. And constitutional, again perhaps largely accidental, because those in favour of Scottish independence had a need to encourage a "One Scotland" approach to rally the population behind one flag, rather than allowing regional or city loyalty to thrive.
The success of England’s devolution, epitomised by Mr Burnham, has encouraged Mr Sarwar to change course and moot the idea of metro-mayors and co-working between local authorities, in a move which is highly unlikely to be replicated by Mr Swinney.
In and of itself, changing the structure of local and regional government is not exactly political gold; I can accept that. Nonetheless, Mr Sarwar should not underestimate the strength of the message, particularly outside the Central Belt, that “Edinburgh doesn’t understand you, your wishes and your needs, and I am going to put your future in your hands”.
With 14 months to go before the next election to the Scottish Parliament, it is time for Mr Sarwar both to widen and deepen his idea.
He could do worse than starting by placing in front of him two maps. The first should be a map of current local authorities – all 32 of them. The second should be a map of Scotland’s city-region growth deals – there are 12 in all. With a fairly small tinker, this second map should form the basis of Mr Sarwar’s proposals.
This would be a significant expansion of his vision. Rather than limiting elected mayoralties to the cities, each of these 12 (or thereabouts) regions should have an elected mayor. Dumfries and Galloway, for instance, needs every bit as strong a voice at Holyrood and Westminster as Glasgow; indeed one might credibly argue that those regions furthest away from Edinburgh are the ones most in need of a strong voice.
The elected mayor should be only one side of the coin, with the other being a genuine devolution of power. These new regional authorities need more control over taxation, for instance, with an ability to raise the type of taxation that best suits their geography, industry and demographics. This should include the power to scrap council tax, if they wish. They should have more control over the nature of health and education delivery, again to ensure that it suits their areas rather than having to reverse engineer systems largely designed to suit the urban centre. They should be given the power to invest in regional infrastructure, which will likely require them being given more control of the proceeds of renewable energy, which are currently swallowed by Holyrood.
Perhaps most crucially of all, regional mayors should sit outside of the national political party structure. This will be hard for any national leader to endorse and I do not, for a second, expect Mr Sarwar to do so, but the reality is that in order to be the strongest advocate, at Westminster and at Holyrood, the mayor should be independent, and elected on a platform focussed squarely on their region rather than their party.
Mayors need to be able to hold the feet of both governments, at Holyrood and Westminster, to the fire, and to act as a force pushing locally elected national politicians to advocate for the place, not for the party. This is best done as an independent.
Scottish devolution is a job half done. Decentralising Scotland up, down and out from Edinburgh is important for our governance and politics, but most of all it is important for our people.
The further we move away from the Central Belt, the more we see local need playing second fiddle to central politics. Access to basic healthcare. Benefit from renewable energy. Improvements in transport infrastructure. Great swathes of the work of the state would see better outcomes as a result of localisation.
Mr Burnham has offered a hint of what is possible. However this is less about Glasgow’s place amongst the cities of the British Isles, and more about the rebirth of Scotland’s regions. Glasgow needs a mayor – Mr Burnham is right about that. But so do the rest of us.
Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast
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