It’s time for a smarter state, and fast.
Government need to let go and let Mayors get on with it!
If you spend long enough in Westminster - as I have certainly done over the last 4 decades - it appears every Government ends up trying to solve every problem by setting up a Taskforce, review, and Commission which requires a 200-page strategy before anything actually happens. Too much long grass gets in the way. Surely we need a more nimble state? If we look beyond SW1 and to the devolved English regions, there is an entirely different way of doing things emerging. Ecosystems are being built where Mayors are getting on with the real “stuff”.
That’s the quiet truth about devolution. It’s a fundamental shift in how we are governed; how Britain becomes a smarter, more innovative, more confident country.
3 Rules for a Smarter State
1. Create platforms, not pet projects
Invest in the plumbing - payments, data standards, digital identity - and you unlock dozens of improvements, not one shiny pilot.
2. Evaluation by default
Clear counterfactuals. Clear outcomes. Ten-minute readouts. No zombie PDFs.
3. Celebrate imitation.
Good ideas should spread like wildfire. A small “CityOps” team - product managers, service designers, data scientists - could help places clone what works and retire what doesn’t.
If there’s one lesson from the past decade, it’s this: when places have the power to act, they do. Devolution isn’t a constitutional nicety. It’s the difference between waiting for permission and getting on with delivering for people who have waited long enough.
Just look at the numbers. The fastest growth in the UK isn’t coming from Whitehall’s playbook, it’s happening in Greater Manchester. It’s coming from Mayors who can move quickly, test ideas in real services, and scale what works across whole economic regions. They don’t need a bidding round to get started. They need the freedom to act.
This is the powerful revolution that devolution enables; a more innovative state built from the ground up. In Liverpool, over 100 primary schools used an AI learning tool that helped thousands of pupils boost their grades. Not because a minister launched a pilot. But because the city-region had the power and the permission to run a serious test, in real classrooms, with real outcomes. That’s what the devolution dividend looks like.
But the real prize isn’t a series of local experiments, it’s the ability to scale success across whole regions. That’s why the forthcoming English Devolution Bill matters. It’s about empowerment. It’s about simplifying the tangled way we govern ourselves. It’s about backing the places that are actually delivering growth and putting money in the pockets of people who feel left behind.
If we want a state that learns, then Whitehall has to do the hardest thing of all - let go.
Because make no mistake, tensions will derail the devolution laboratories if the centre can’t resist meddling. Governments talk about “trusting local leaders” and then hand out micro-pots via beauty contests. They call for innovation and then wrap it in guidance thicker than a bus timetable.
If devolution is to work, the deal must be clear:
Set the mission nationally. Deliver locally. Fund what works. Stop what doesn’t. And for once, stay the course.
Mayors have shown they can convene, test, adapt and replicate faster than any Whitehall department. They’re close enough to the problem to know which levers matter and accountable enough to stop tinkering when something works. They can copy ideas at speed, whether it’s Manchester’s bus franchising or the West Midlands’ integrated ticketing.
A leaner British state is not a smaller one. It is a smarter one. It pushes power down so innovation can start - and lifts what works up so it can spread across the country. It’s how we move from a handful of bright spots to a genuinely rebalanced economy.
Devolution works. The question now is whether government can step back, let Mayors use their powers to get on with it, and finally back the places that are delivering growth for their regions, and real opportunity for the people too often left behind.
Too much distance between people and power is not good. When communities feel powerless It’s time for governments to get out of the bunker, listen, connect and get smarter!
