As Andy Burnham eyes Number 10, Colin Copus, Emeritus Professor of Local Politics at De Montfort University and Visiting Professor and Ghent University, argues he should pause local government reorganisation and ask whether Whitehall's latest shake-up is devolution at all – or just decentralisation dressed up in its clothes.

Days before Mr Burnham becomes Prime Minister, Secretary of State Steve Reed, announced the second tranche of local government reorganisation (LGR), reducing 133 councils, in 14 areas, to a mere 38, at the stroke of his pen. Reed has commented: ‘we’ve got a mandate to do it; we’ll go ahead and we’ll do it’. As LGR was not part of the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto it is difficult to see the source of that mandate. We will see whether Reed remains Secretary of State under Prime Minister Burnham, but LGR will trundle on whoever is in office and that is a great shame.

A new Prime Minster – especially one committed to devolution – provides opportunities to ask simple questions about LGR: Is this right? Do we need it? What can we do instead? To the first and second the answer is ‘No’ and the third rarely, if ever, gets addressed.

Devolution looms large in Mr Burnham’s thinking. He is right to address how our heavily centralised country can unlock the power and potential resting with its localities. So, he and local government would benefit from a period of reflection and thinking to be gained from putting the LGR adventure on hold – including tranches already announced.

Not only is devolution a priority – which, by the way, does not rest, in theory or practice, on LGR – but so too is economic development, house building, social care, education and local planning – and much more besides. The success of these services – as we see from considerable overseas evidence – rests less on local government structure and size but more on local government having the powers, freedoms, political manoeuvrability, responsibilities and finances to do the job.

The process and cost of reorganisation (normally under-estimated) is an unnecessary distraction from delivering the services the public rely upon, it shifts focus away from shaping policy for local needs and distorts the politically representative and accountability relationships councils and councillors have with communities. Plus, we have known from over 50 years of independent academic research that making councils bigger is absolutely no guarantee they will be better, cheaper, more cost effective or efficient – those criteria, again, rest on far more than size and structure.

Strangely that independent research-based evidence is over-looked by a centre hell-bent on getting local government as close as possible to Maud’s 58 unitary councils across England.

Then we have to ask are we really getting devolution or just decentralisation on steroids? Devolution, such as the political and governing freedoms devolved to the Scottish and Welsh chambers, is very different to the decentralisation of tasks, functions, responsibilities and services to find their way to Strategic Authorities – leaving traditional local government not a recipient of direct devolution.

Much is to be gained for Mr Burnham’s devolution agenda from pausing LGR to explore, through an independent inquiry/commission, how local government operates elsewhere. Indeed, Mr Burnham has expressed interest in Germany’s constitution and Basic Law, so we need to know why Germany manages with almost 11,500 units of local government (municipalities and counties) along with 16 federal States; how does France manage with 18 regions, 96 departments, 34,000 municipalities; or Italy with almost 8,000 municipalities, 110 provinces and 20 regions; all tiered systems. Then we need to look at the freedoms, powers and responsibilities and the financial set up of local government across the globe and when we do we will see LGR has no place in strengthening local government. Mr Burnham: stop LGR and make devolution mean devolution.

Further reading: Local Government Reorganisation: What It Means and Why It Matters, Devolution and putting place first, Fiscal Devolution – has stuff just got real?, and Local Government Reorganisation: What councils must get right.