Universities UK has provided a factsheet titled Innovation and Growth Factsheet Series: City Deals, as a simple means to explain and provide information on the Government’s Devolution Act to take place over the next five years and beyond.
The factsheet highlights the relationship between devolution, localism and UK universities and argues that universities are well placed to work with businesses and local authorities and to uncover and deliver the benefits of increased localism:
“Devolution and localism are important because they open up opportunities for universities to become more engaged in their local area, through their leadership roles, education provision, skills training, coordination of economic and social activity, provision of evidence and analysis, and national and international links.”
Recently, we posted a Buzz about The Leading Places Project, which was enabled through the ‘Cities and Devolution Act 2016’. Below is a table provided from the UUK factsheet, in which links are provided to government policy papers.
The Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 was given Royal Assent in January this year. The Bill itself can be found here. The Act is the latest measure to enhance devolution for UK local government, which aims to act as a tool to encourage localism, and stimulate regeneration and investment. Part of the devolution agreement between central government and city/county regions is that regions are given control to make decisions that (1) affect their area; (2) will encourage businesses to grow and stimulate the economy; (3) dictate how money should be spent locally.
The Communities and Local Government Committee, since, published the inquiry in to the Act, titled Devolution: the next five years and beyond in which they ‘support the principle of devolution’ but also find ‘a significant lack of public consultation and engagement at all stages in the devolution process’. The Committee has said that the Government’s approach currently has ‘no clear, measurable objectives for devolution’, and that the ‘timetable is rushed and efforts are not being made to inject openness or transparency into the deal negotiations’. Forty recommendations were made.
In late May, the Government responded to the inquiry, which can be read here.