Northcote Trevelyan – decentralisation

A cross party strategy for full and lasting decentralisation

NT Revisited – decentralisation, diagnoses why previous attempts to decentralise have failed or petered out, sets out the principles of decentralisation and presents a strategic plan for implementation.

Successive governments have taken more and more responsibility away from civil society and local government, and centralised it in London. The UK is about the most centralised democratic country in the world. It now controls and spends 51% of GDP compared with 12% in 1912.

Centralisation has given Ministers and senior Civil Servants impossible jobs with a mismatch of skills and experience to the needs of their roles.

Ministers are de facto chief executives, yet most have no management experience yet are expected to run huge departments and to devise and implement strategies for the challenges that the face the UK.

A new approach is detailed in our report.