Ricardo Gomez

Meet Ricardo, from our Urban Solutions team: An entrepreneur with a head for devolution and strategic innovation

Our colleagues at Hatch are entrepreneurs with technical souls.

What does that mean? It means we embrace the toughest challenges, spot connections and look for opportunities to share practical solutions. We think globally and act locally. Our diverse team leverages skills and technical knowledge, looking for opportunities to make a better world.

This month, we want to introduce you to Ricardo Gomez, director in our Urban Solutions team with expertise in advising public sector decision makers on the process and practicalities of devolution. As we continue to explore the themes and challenges surrounding devolution in England, we’re gleaning Ricardo’s thoughts on how to make devolution count.

Where did you first experience the hands-on reality of implementing devolution?

In the early 2000s I was part of an academic research team on the Economic and Social Research Council’s Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme, tasked with providing evidence and practical advice to decision makers.

It was an exciting time to be involved. New devolved governments, parliaments and assemblies in Scotland and Wales were bedding in, and powers were devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. In England, Greater London saw a new Mayor of London and Assembly created.

Reflecting on that time, how successful was the “devolution project” of the 2000s?

There was a degree of success, yes. Some steps were made towards limited devolution for English regions with the creation of regional development agencies and additional responsibilities were taken on by regional government offices. But proposals to created elected regional assemblies were never realised.

Moving from academia to a role as a regional policy adviser in local government, I saw first-hand how the process faltered and failed.

Now devolution is the “mot du jour” and back at the top of the government’s agenda. Can you give us the highlights. What’s happening?

Yes, it’s true that devolution is a huge topic of conversation, which is once again at the front of my mind. The Labour government has picked up the mantle from the last Conservative government and gone further still. Last December’s White Paper committed to widening and deepening devolution in England.

The government intends to increase the number of mayoral or combined county authorities and provide integrated settlements to give existing mayoral combined authorities more flexibility over how they allocate resources. It is offering new powers in areas including economic development, spatial planning, housing, skills and transport, with more on the horizon.

Twenty five years on, it seems I’ve come full circle. As part of Hatch’s Urban Solutions team working with combined authorities, I’m advising decision makers again and able to bring lessons learnt from my earlier experience of English devolution into those discussions.

What is the crucial ingredient that must be present for this latest push for devolution to be successful?

Democratic accountability is essential to making this English devolution work.

There were many reasons why proposals for directly elected regional assemblies in the 2000s failed to get off the ground, with the first and only referendum in the north east (in 2004) having resoundingly rejected it. Scepticism about whether a new regional organisation would have any power and budget to spend, and questioning the need for ‘another’ tier of government, were among those reasons.

Devolution 2025 is on a firmer footing. Directly elected mayors, and strategic authorities led by local authorities with elected members, have in-built accountability to devolution settlements. Evidence from devolved government in the UK and elsewhere suggests that strong accountability to an electorate tends to lead to better performance in achieving positive economic and social outcomes, assuming powers and resources are available to respond to voters’ priorities and preferences.

What else will be important to get right?

Getting the geographies right is also vital. One salutary lesson of English regional devolution is that one size did not fit all.

Yes, it’s important that spatial areas are big enough to plan for strategic issues like housing delivery. But bigger isn’t always better. Greater Manchester isn’t successful because it’s big; it’s successful because the geography matches the regional economy and labour market.

The danger facing the latest tranche of devolution is that some proposed strategic authority boundaries do not match the regional economy. And a fragmented strategic authority will struggle to agree on its strategic priorities.

What is different—and encouraging—about Labour’s devolution?

Funding matters, and particularly the freedom and flexibility to decide how to invest resources.

Regional devolution in the 2000s did not come with decentralized control of funding and the power to pursue choices about priorities for investment and growth.

In 2025, integrated settlements combining government funding for adult skills, housing and regeneration, buildings retrofit, transport and local growth in a single pot look like an important move in the right direction, enabling places to identify and deliver infrastructure and services without the complexity of—or at least, far less—fragmented departmental government funding.

It will be important that the positive impact of devolution is seen and felt by people. How must combined authorities demonstrate this?

Absolutely, having an impact is critical, otherwise it risks falling to the same fate as the north west’s regional assembly proposal.

Looking back, despite regional development agencies leading some major programmes and projects in the English regions, it proved very difficult for the architects of regional devolution to build and extend an understanding of the difference it was making.

Combined authorities now have the opportunity to make locally-led choices about priorities and resources that were not available in the 2000s. Investments by mayoral combined authorities, such as the extension of the West Midlands’ metro network, bringing buses under the control of Greater Manchester Combined Authority or Liverpool City Region’s full fibre network (LCR Connect) are high profile examples of impactful decisions led by combined authorities. Making a visible and lasting difference to their communities, whether through new and improved infrastructure, or the services they develop and deliver, will be key to building awareness of devolution and commitment to its institutions.