Before too long, most people living in England will find they have a directly elected mayor in their area, making big decisions on transport, economic development, skills, further education, and possibly public health and policing. These mayors will sit at the heart of devolution deals, agreed between central government and local areas, which will see accountability and responsibility decentralised.

Beyond elections, there will be quite limited local mechanisms for holding these mayors to account. True, combined authorities – bodies made up of elected councillor leaders from across the area – will have a role in decision-making. These combined authorities in turn must establish overview and scrutiny committees of local councillors, to hold decision-makers to account – mirroring the arrangements which apply to most local authorities.

But the existence of these new structures is not in itself a guarantee of accountability. There needs to be an active effort by mayors and local councils to ensure these arrangements really work in the way intended.

Poor accountability will lead to services feeling and looking just as remote as they do when directed from London
Nationally, the systems for accountability seem, oddly, rather stronger. Devolution deals give government significant powers to hold local areas to account for their delivery under the deal.

Funding comes with strings attached and can be withheld if expectations are not met. Whitehall is keen to continue to assert its authority – and parliament is keen to support it. Recently, the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) placed devolution deals alongside major national schemes like e-borders in highlighting the risks of huge amounts of public money being spent without parliamentary oversight. But this fails to take account of the fact that effective oversight will work best if it works at local level. …

… What will happen if we fail to develop robust systems for accountability at local level? The first risk is that devolution will be anything but – a decentralisation of responsibility while power remains firmly at the centre. A tussle of power and responsibility between those at local and national level will only ever be won by Whitehall, which has the interest and the power to maintain the status quo.

The second is that devolution will fail to deliver the outcomes which have been promised. The only way that devolution will be a success is if local politicians are able to take more power to develop and implement creative, exciting ways to improve local people’s lives. Poor or non-existent accountability will lead to services feeling and looking just as remote as they have done when directed from London. …

… Areas with devolution deals in place will have to take it upon themselves to develop systems that will give local people confidence that deals will be implemented in their interests, and that they will have an opportunity to influence this implementation. …”