Centre for Cities has set out.<\/a><\/p>\nIn announcing the move towards devolution, he noted that the existing Glasgow City Region \u2013 based on the City Deal and City Region cabinet \u2013 has a strong record of partnership working and delivery, and should be a \u201cpathfinder\u201d for devolution within Scotland.<\/p>\n
This displays a welcome understanding of both the need to support Glasgow City Region\u2019s economy, the existing geography and institutions on which to base next steps, and the need to prioritise Scotland\u2019s largest urban economy.<\/p>\n
The proposals don\u2019t go far enough<\/p>\n
Looking closer at Swinney\u2019s announcement, it remains unclear what exactly could be on offer, and whether it will go far enough in giving Glasgow City Region the powers and leadership it needs.<\/p>\n
From last week\u2019s announcement, it appears that devolution to the Glasgow City Region (and other places in Scotland) will be based on Scotland\u2019s existing regional partnerships and will use a cabinet model. Allowing regional partnerships to seek legal status is welcome. Without this, Glasgow City Region cannot hold statutory powers, receive funding directly, raise revenue, borrow or employ staff. But this form of devolution remains based on a partnership model that could hold up decision-making and risks strategic choices for the city-region becoming caught up in local authority politics.<\/p>\n
The proposed model also avoids \u201cimposing\u201d a metro mayor. For the people of Glasgow City Region, this means devolution could \u2013 ironically \u2013 result in the imposition of a new tier of governance with significant powers and funding, but with no democratic accountability and very little transparency. And for the City Region itself, the lack of a metro mayor means the lack of a single, executive leader able to take strategic decisions on behalf of the entire City Region \u2013 and to bear responsibility for the results.<\/p>\n
Or fast enough<\/p>\n
The second big area of uncertainty is the timeline for devolution. The First Minister committed to introducing legislation in the next parliament \u2013 already a long and unspecified timeline.<\/p>\n
Glasgow City Region will be developing its detailed proposals to discuss with the Scottish Government in early 2026, and it is right that it (and other Scottish city-regions) should have a say in what devolved powers and funding they need. But both the City Region and Scottish Government should bear in mind that Glasgow cannot afford to wait. The longer spent developing the model and legislation, the more it risks falling behind European and English counterparts such as Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield.<\/p>\n
It is also a timeline that relies on the next Scottish Government continuing the devolution agenda. In England, there has been broad support and consistency on devolution from successive governments, which has helped progress the agenda over the last decade.<\/p>\n
This is why Centre for Cities is calling for all of Scotland\u2019s parties to make devolution to the Glasgow City Region a manifesto commitment to be delivered in 2026. Glasgow City Region is the UK\u2019s fourth-largest city and accounts for a third of Scotland\u2019s GVA. It should be a priority for any party to put Glasgow on equal footing with other large cities in terms of powers, funding and leadership by delivering devolution for the City Region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This time last week, First Minister John Swinney used a speech at Glasgow\u2019s State of the City conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-612689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115664081966143415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}