The Biggest British Devolution in 40 Years: What’s Changing Now

How the Government Plans to Rewire Britain Through Devolution

Today, the Burnham government published its most ambitious policy agenda yet. In a Cabinet statement titled “Rewiring the State,” the government has laid out plans to fundamentally reshape how Britain is governed,transferring vast powers from Westminster to local mayors, giving regional leaders control over billions in funding, and shrinking central government in the process.

This is not incremental change. This is radical devolution on a scale Britain has never attempted before.

The Vision: A Britain Governed From The Ground Up

For decades, British politics has operated on a simple principle: London knows best. Westminster and Whitehall controlled education, transport, housing, health, policing, culture, skills training, and economic development. Local leaders were given budgets and told what to do with them. They had no room to maneuver.

Burnham’s new model reverses this entirely. The philosophy is simple: local leaders understand their communities better than distant bureaucrats in London. Give them power. Give them money. Get out of their way. Let them solve problems.

The Cabinet statement says it plainly: “The way the country is governed is not delivering for people and the places where they live: most decisions are too centralised; those advising on and taking them are too distant from the people they will affect.”

This is Burnham’s diagnosis of Britain’s problem. And his solution is devolution.

What Power Is Being Transferred? The Headline Changes

Education and Skills

Mayors will gain control over 16-19 year old education budgets. They will design their own vocational pathways. They will set up apprenticeships that match local job markets. They will work with employers to ensure young people transition smoothly from school to work.

Currently, Westminster decides curriculum. Westminster approves qualifications. Westminster controls the money. Under the new model, a mayor in Manchester can design an education system tailored to Manchester’s economy. A mayor in the South West can build vocational training aligned with tourism and agriculture. A mayor in the East Midlands can focus on manufacturing and advanced engineering.

The impact: Young people get training for jobs that actually exist in their area, not generic qualifications suited to nowhere in particular.

Transport

Mayors get power to take buses into public control (ending private franchises). They control ticketing systems. They get “much deeper partnership” with Great British Railways on commuter rail. They can approve local transport schemes up to £500 million without asking Westminster’s permission.

The government will also “remove the need for government approval of locally funded transport schemes for places with integrated settlements, except those that interact with the national network.”

Translation: Mayors build the transport system they think their region needs, not the system London approves.

Housing

Mayors gain greater control over the Social and Affordable Homes Programme. They can use public development corporations to drive housing and infrastructure development. They get funding to upgrade existing homes to warmer standards.

Currently, housing policy is driven by central government targets and regulations. Under devolution, each region can prioritize different housing strategies—perhaps more social housing in one area, more private development incentives in another.

Health and Policing

Police forces will align with strategic authority boundaries. Police units will report to local authorities. Integrated Care Boards (NHS) will align with local government structures. Deputy mayors will get responsibility for key public services.

This means a mayor will have genuine power to coordinate health and policing with housing, education, and employment policy. Currently these services operate in silos, each answering to different Westminster departments.

Culture and Sport

Mayors will control funding currently managed by Arts Council England and Sport England. Local leaders will decide how cultural and sporting investment is deployed in their regions.

Economic Development

Mayors will foster local innovation ecosystems. They will establish “Good Growth Funds” to invest long-term in their local economies. They will support local reindustrialization by building on “frontier sector and cluster strengths.”

Employment Support

The government will devolve employment support to mayors. Regions can procure and provide specialized support for long-term unemployed tailored to local needs.

The Money: How Devolution Gets Funded

But power without money is meaningless. So Burnham’s government is fundamentally changing how local government gets funded.

From Grants to Taxation

Currently, most local government funding comes as central government grants. Westminster decides how much money each area gets. This creates dependency and micromanagement.

Starting in 2028, Burnham’s government will replace grants with local income tax. Each mayor will retain a share of income tax raised in their region. If the region grows its economy and tax base, the mayor benefits from the increased receipts.

This is revolutionary. It means:

• ✅ Local leaders have incentive to grow their economy (they benefit)
• ✅ Long-term funding certainty (not year-to-year grants)
• ✅ No Westminster micromanagement (money follows outcomes)
• ✅ Mayors can invest for the future (knowing they’ll recoup investment)

Business Rates

Starting April 2027, local councils and strategic authorities will retain more of the business rates they collect, rather than sending money to Westminster and hoping for grants back.

Overnight Visitor Levy

Strategic authorities can introduce a tax on overnight stays (hotels, B&Bs). Local leaders decide how the money is spent. This could fund infrastructure, tourism development, or local services.

Rebalancing Public Investment

The government acknowledges “large regional disparities between current levels of public investment per head” across the country. It commits to rebalancing public investment to “ensure we are backing growth opportunities in all parts of the country.”

Translation: Money will flow to growing regions, not just to London and the South East.

The Institutional Framework: Strategic Authorities and Mayors

To deliver this devolution, the government is creating (or expanding) strategic authorities; there are regional governance bodies led by directly elected mayors.

Currently, only some regions have mayors (London, Manchester, etc.). Under this plan:

• Every area in England should have a strategic authority by end of 2027, fully operational by end of 2028.
• New mayoral authorities have been designated: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, West of England, York and North Yorkshire.
• Areas that don’t want a mayor can establish “non-mayoral foundation strategic authorities” with an enhanced set of powers (though fewer powers than mayoral areas).
• The government strongly prefers mayors: “We do consider that directly accountable mayors represent the strongest form of governance available, and so the suite of powers available to areas with mayors will be commensurately greater.”

Mayors become the single point of accountability. They have powers to drive growth, integrate services, and set priorities. They can be held responsible by voters for outcomes.

The Central Government Shift: Smaller, Mores Strategic

This devolution requires central government to fundamentally change.

Devolution By Default

The government adopts a principle: “Devolving by default—meaning that where policies or services are being designed or altered, Secretaries of State will need to justify holding them at the level of central government.”

Currently the opposite is true. Devolution is the exception. Westminster holds powers unless there’s a good reason to devolve.

Under Burnham, devolution is the rule. Westminster must justify keeping power.

Smaller Civil Service

Central government will become “smaller and more strategic, releasing savings and enabling resources to be transferred to local areas alongside policy responsibilities.”

The Civil Service will refocus on challenges that can only be handled nationally. It will build career paths between central and local government. It will become more “porous.”

Arm’s Length Bodies Reformed

The government will scrutinize arm’s length bodies (quangos, agencies, public corporations). Any function should be transferred to local leaders, returned to ministers, or justified as needing to remain external. Duplicate policy and communications teams in arm’s length bodies will be cut.

The Timeline: When Does This Happen?

Immediate (Now)

• Greater flexibility to deploy funding within existing integrated settlements
• Letters to areas without strategic authorities asking if they want a mayor

Coming Weeks and Months

• Design of Overnight Visitor Levy
• Mayoral intervention powers in planning
• Devolution of Transport and Works Act Orders
• Streamlined reporting for mayors

Autumn 2026

• White paper with full reform plans
• Fiscal devolution roadmap
• Implementation timetable

April 2027

• Business rates retention begins
• Overnight Visitor Levy powers activated
• New mayors elected in Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington

April 2028

• Income tax retention begins (major funds flowing to local areas)
• Spending Review confirms detailed arrangements
• Further wave of new mayors elected

End 2027-2028

• Strategic authorities in place everywhere
• Public service alignment (police, fire, health, education boundaries aligned with local government)

What This Means For Voters?

Better Local Services (If It Works)

If Burnham’s vision is realized, local services improve because:

• Doctors, teachers, police, and social workers answer to the same local leader
• That leader can coordinate across services, not manage silos
• Services adapt to local needs, not Westminster templates
• Money follows outcomes, not bureaucracy

More Local Democracy

Voters can hold their mayor responsible for outcomes. If education, health, policing, and transport are all coordinated by one elected official, voters know who to blame (or praise) when things go well or badly.

Currently, a voter can’t tell if bad education results are Westminster’s fault (funding, curriculum) or local authorities’ fault (leadership, implementation). Devolution makes accountability clear.

Regional Growth (If It Works)

Local leaders can make long-term investments in their region’s economy, knowing they’ll benefit from growth. A mayor might invest in a new business park, knowing that successful businesses will generate tax revenue the region keeps.

Currently, Westminster controls investment. Local leaders have no incentive to take entrepreneurial risks.

Better Outcomes on Hard Problems

Health, housing, employment, skills, and policing are all interconnected. A person struggling with unemployment might have underlying mental health, housing instability, or childcare problems. Under devolution, a mayor can coordinate health, housing, and employment services to solve the whole problem, not just provide employment training.

The Risks and Challenges

But Burnham’s vision faces serious obstacles.

Capacity and Capability

Do local leaders have the skills to manage this devolved power? The government acknowledges this: it will provide “capacity and capability support” and “secondments from central government.”

But building institutional capacity takes time. A mayor in a small town might suddenly have responsibility for £1 billion in funding and complex regional development. Are they ready?

Unequal Starting Points

The Cabinet statement notes “different levels of readiness for change.” Some regions are stronger, better led, better resourced than others. Will devolution advantage already-prosperous regions while struggling regions fall further behind?

Fairness Between Places

The government says it will “consider how these growth incentives can be balanced with the need for fairness between places, recognising that there will be different starting points.”

Translation: We want local growth incentives but don’t want rich areas getting richer while poor areas stay poor. Squaring this circle is hard.

Coordination Across Regional Boundaries

Some issues (energy, environment, rail, motorways) span multiple mayoral regions. How does coordination happen when each mayor has maximum autonomy?

Political Risk

If things go wrong in a region (poor services, failed economic development), voters will blame the mayor. But if the mayor lacks capacity or if the national economy is weak, that’s not really the mayor’s fault. Will the system survive political blame when implementation is imperfect?

The Bigger Picture: Why Now?

Burnham’s devolution agenda is politically motivated but philosophically coherent.

Politically: Devolution to mayors is popular. Mayors (especially those in the North) are often popular locally. Devolution sounds like “power to the people.” It polls well.

Philosophically: Burnham believes Westminster-centric governance has failed Britain. The evidence: regional inequality, sluggish productivity, disconnected decision-making, services that don’t talk to each other, declining public trust.

His diagnosis is right. His solution is intellectually coherent. Whether it works in practice is another question.

What Happens Next?

This statement is a framework, not a full plan. The government will publish a white paper this autumn with detailed plans and implementation timelines.

The real test comes April 2027 (business rates retention) and April 2028 (income tax retention). That’s when substantial money flows from Westminster to regions.

The bigger test comes 2029 onward, when voters see whether devolved regions actually deliver better outcomes.

By 2030, we’ll know whether Burnham’s radical reshaping of Britain worked or whether it created new problems.

The Verdict

Burnham’s devolution agenda is the most ambitious governance reform Britain has attempted in decades. It’s philosophically coherent. It addresses real problems. It’s politically popular.

But it’s also risky. It depends on local leaders being capable. It requires coordination across boundaries. It could entrench regional inequality if not carefully managed.

The question isn’t whether Burnham’s vision is ambitious. It is. The question is whether Britain’s local institutions are ready to deliver it.

We’ll find out by 2029.