Labour has promised a “devolution revolution”, giving more power to local government to make decisions on economic growth, transport and employment support. Keir Starmer reinforced the point in the King’s Speech, and Liz Kendall promised to “get Britain working again” as part of the devolution agenda. Ruth Patrick, John Hudson, Hayley Bennett, and Lisa Scullion highlight the lessons that the Government can learn from how devolution already works across the country, especially in relation to social security. 

In his first week as UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer promised to devolve power down to local communities, arguing that decisions are best made by those with “skin in the game”. This aligns with Starmer’s previous pledge to help citizens “take back control” (subverting the language of the previous government, now opposition), Meanwhile, new Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor has spoken of creating a “devolution revolution”.

Starmer has backed up this rhetoric with some early actions; the King’s Speech included a commitment to creating a new Council of the Nations and Regions  which will see regular meetings between devolved leaders. Among the flurry of new bills included in the speech was an English Devolution Bill, which will see increased power given to local leaders to set agendas for economic growth, transport and employment support.

The new secretary of state for the Department for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, developed this agenda further, using her first speech to set out a broad agenda to “get Britain working again”, which included a commitment to localising employment support. Kendall said: “we will empower local leaders and local areas to tackle economic inactivity and open up economic opportunity.” How this will work in practice as yet remains unclear, especially in terms of how local powers to design “a joined-up work, health and skills offer that’s right for local people” will sit alongside the UK Government’s retention of centralised policy and administration, including benefit conditionality and sanctions.

Local employment support isn’t a blank canvas; there’s a lot of learning available from programmes that already exist, often led by third sector, health services, housing providers and local employability partnerships across the UK.

Kendall’s early statement on localising employment support is part of the new government’s ambition to meet an 80 per cent employment rate. Meeting this ambition relies on new policies and resources to address current issues of economic inactivity, specifically people leaving the labour market due to ill-health. The strategy includes the creation of a national Labour Market Advisory Board, as well as a commitment to empower local leaders and improve local partnerships involving health, social care, and employment support to address economic inactivity (with employment support for the unemployed- technically a different group of people- remaining the responsibility of UK government and Jobcentre Plus).

But local employment support isn’t a blank canvas; there’s a lot of learning available from programmes that already exist, often led by third sector, health services, housing providers and local employability partnerships across the UK. For example, empowering local leaders and decision-makers featured heavily in Scotland’s devolved employment support programmes (after the Smith Commission in 2014). The No One Left Behind and Fair Start Scotland agendas emphasised local partnerships, person-centred services, fair work, and a commitment to “dignity and respect”. Child Poverty Action Group’s Your Work, Your Way has shown the impact of support that works with, rather than against the grain of individuals” ambitions and employment preferences.

Kendall and Starmer seem to have recognised the scope inherent in devolution both to govern differently, in line with local needs, preferences, and politics, and to facilitate significant divergences in how policy is delivered in different parts of the country.

Kendall and Starmer seem to have recognised the scope inherent in devolution both to govern differently, in line with local needs, preferences, and politics, and to facilitate significant divergences in how policy is delivered in different parts of the country. This is already the case with social security, where recent years have seen quite significant differences open up in how “welfare” is designed, delivered and implemented in different parts of the UK. For example, the Scottish Government has used its devolved powers to develop new benefits including the flagship Scottish Child Payment which sees low-income families receive £25 per child per week, in an effort to meet  its own legislative commitment to reduce child poverty. Scotland also has its own benefit to cover the additional costs of disability – the Adult and Child Disability Payments, with its legislation underpinned by a set of principles that include seeing social security as an investment and the importance of treating people with dignity and respect.

The UK’s main working-age benefit – Universal Credit – is also delivered differently depending on where in the UK you live, with Northern Ireland offering a default of fortnightly payments, and providing a discretionary non-repayable grant to offset the controversial “five week wait” for a first payment. Both Northern Ireland and Scotland are also seeking to offer split payments, so that couple households can choose to divide the payment between the two of them, rather than nominating one adult to receive it all.

What is important to recognize then, is not only that we have a government who is committing to increasing and extending devolution, but that we already have a significant degree of devolution in the arena of social security.

As the inadequacy of social security provision has increased in recent years, local forms of welfare provision have also become increasingly important. Since the Welfare Reform Act 2012, Local Governments have had increasing decision-making and financial responsibility in their provision of  localised forms of crisis “welfare” such as the Household Support Fund, Local Welfare Assistance, and administration of Discretionary Housing Payments. But these forms of localised welfare, which are subject to various demands, are often limited to emergency aid that are delivered differently by different local authorities – some provide cash, some vouchers, some goods, some services, leading to an uneven patchwork of provision.

What is important to recognize then, is not only that we have a government who is committing to increasing and extending devolution, but that we already have a significant degree of devolution in the arena of social security. But, the scale, nature and extent of the devolution and localisation of social security provision is poorly understood, meaning the opportunities to learn from these differences are not being realised. This needs to change if we are to develop social security systems that work for those who need them, and that meet the needs of contemporary UK. We all have skin in the game in seeing that happen, and soon.

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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