In Newcastle last month, North East mayor Kim McGuinness gave us a plain way of thinking about devolution. “But if they know their mayor got them a cheaper bus fare, that’s good enough for me.” She was answering a question about whether people understood devolution. A cheaper journey was her example of how they might recognise it in their own lives.
Follow that thought to the bus stop. The fare is easy to see. It takes more work to establish whether the last bus gets people home after a late shift, whether cancellations cluster on particular routes, or whether a better regional average reaches the places with the fewest alternatives. And if a service falls short, who has the power to do something about it?
Those questions ran beneath a Centre for Cities discussion on 3 November, chaired by Andrew Carter and drawing on the National Audit Office’s July report on English devolution. The panel was wrestling with what happens when Whitehall lets regional leaders make more of the spending decisions, while Parliament still expects government departments to answer for public money. For the North, the question is how much of the information that travels up to government comes back in a form people here can use.
An integrated settlement brings several streams of government funding into a multi-year package. Greater Manchester was an early recipient. The North East, Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire joined from the 2026–27 financial year. The idea is to give places room to plan across policy boundaries. A region trying to get more people into work can think about transport and skills together, just as the person trying to reach a training course already has to do. The funds still come with conditions and agreed measures.
Shivam Sood, a senior analyst at the National Audit Office, gave an example of how much can turn on those measures. The Department for Transport began negotiations with 44 indicators. Some were intended as core measures and others as supporting context. The department and the authorities eventually agreed on 21 for the final frameworks. Departments have reason to ask where the money went and what it bought. But the things they require a region to count can also shape what it puts staff time and money into. Carter wondered whether performance management would become “the tail that wags the sort of devolution dog”.
Victoria Sutherland, deputy director for evidence at the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth, separated two questions that often get bundled together. Parliament can ask whether public money was properly spent and whether decision-makers used sound evidence. Residents have a particular stake in judging whether the choices improved their lives and reflected their priorities. Doing that takes timely, detailed information. A regional economic output figure that arrives two years later will tell us little about which communities benefited from a particular scheme, or how much of the change the scheme itself brought about.
In Greater Manchester, Transport for Greater Manchester publishes bus punctuality reports through the Bee Network. The next question for anyone looking at either set of figures is how far they can get from a network-wide result to the journey they rely on. An improvement across a region can be real while leaving an unreliable evening service exactly where it was.
The North East already has an overview and scrutiny committee through which councillors can examine decisions and make recommendations. Residents can attend public meetings or take a concern directly to the mayor through the authority’s engagement events. Jess Tulasiewicz, Centre for Cities’ head of public affairs and policy, raised the practical issue of what scrutiny committees have to work with. Members need time, specialist advice and enough independence to pursue a question when the answer is inconvenient. A committee can have a meeting in the diary and still struggle to interrogate a financial forecast or a transport contract.
The Tees Valley came up in the audience questions. On 15 October, ministers announced a statutory Best Value inspection of Tees Valley Combined Authority, citing concerns about financial sustainability and management, leadership and governance. The authority said it welcomed the inspectors’ appointment and would cooperate. The inspection is examining whether the authority is meeting its duties, with findings due to ministers by March 2027. It shows where central government can step in when concerns reach that point. The everyday question for residents is how much they can find out about decisions as they are being made, while there is still time to influence them.
The stakes are rising. The Treasury’s October fiscal devolution roadmap sets out plans for mayoral authorities to receive a share of business rates from 2027 and a share of income tax receipts from 2028. The government has also said that mayoral authority chief executives will become Local Accounting Officers, responsible for the use of public money. The panel asked where those officers would actually have to explain themselves. Parliament has a role in examining the way government funds and oversees the system. A local committee can ask why a particular town was passed over, or whether the case for an investment stood up to the evidence. The people who live with the result need to be able to follow both conversations.
Sutherland pointed to the role local reporting plays in helping people judge what a policy has changed. A published growth plan or a mayoral phone-in can help people understand what an authority intends to do. It takes a different kind of work to follow up six months later, put the published figures alongside what people are experiencing and ask the authority to explain the gap.
At the Newcastle discussion, the word we kept hearing was hopeful. There was hope in the idea that the North East could make choices of its own, and in the thought that those choices could make a difference beyond the places that already attract investment. That’s a good reason to care about the details of scrutiny. Back at the bus stop, someone should be able to find out who decided where the service would run, what they promised and when the decision can be challenged. The fare on the ticket is one answer. There’s still the question of whether you can get home.
