Levelling up towns and cities in non-metropolitan England: Principles for county devolution

Devolution can give communities the opportunity to shape their own destiny; to rethink the delivery of critical services and investments in places; to join them up around the people and places to deliver game-changing outcomes, for communities and for the Exchequer.

Bringing leadership, knowledge, agility and delivery capacity, and with a long history of innovating and collaborating across boundaries, districts can make devolution real at pace.

This short paper summarises the key principles we believe should be at the heart of taking devolution and levelling up forward, as we encourage government to look more broadly at long-term devolution of a full range of powers and resources towards a truly decentralised future, based on the principles that:

• Different services operate best at different levels;
• Functional economic areas and connectivity are key drivers of productivity;
• Partnership and collaboration should be fostered across devolved areas in ambitious deals.