Senior figures at the Local Government Association (LGA) are divided over whether to continue to press ministers to allow ‘full monty’ devolution without a directly elected mayor.
Chief executive of the LGA Mark Lloyd told Surveyor the association would continue to push ministers to ‘remove the issue of governance arrangements from devolution deals’, despite the fact the Government has made clear its desire to only devolve maximum powers to areas with a mayor.
Mark Lloyd LGA chief executive
However many in the sector see it as a losing battle after a tough year of lobbying for a better set-up for devolution, which saw several deals fall apart or cut back.
Cllr Robert Light, LGA City Regions Board vice chairman, said: ‘Local government needs to stop fighting the battle over metro mayors because we are not going to win.’
And Liam Booth-Smith, chief executive of Localis, said sections of local government were in danger of becoming ‘devo whingers’ and predicted that the devolution agenda would get ‘rolled up into the industrial strategy’.
He added that devolution is a 'means to an end' and pushed the sector to not call for devolution for the sake of it.
Mr Booth-Smith said devolution could be rolled into the strategy under former communities secretary Greg Clark in his new role as secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
In a speech to the CBI last month, prime minister Theresa May promised a green paper on the industrial strategy before the end of the year and a white paper early in the new year.
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